Wood elves against Khemri team

[Coach Alex]

Hello guys, I'm playing bloodbowl since almost a year. I managed to domine our last league (which was composed of coaches who never played before) with a Skaven team and I decided to try the Wood Elves for this one (which include new players that are quite experienced).

Right now, I'm second in the league, a few points behind the Khemri team, which I seriously fear because I never played against them and their coach is the most experienced of the whole league. On first thought, I considered the Khemri as quite an easy team to defeat with their <3 AG. But I've earned that AV 7 is arguably as bad so these ST5 mummies and expendable DP skelletons are a little frightening!

Anyway, I have been somehow lucky with my team and I managed to get it to that :

- 1 Wardancer with leader (special rules, free skill), stripball and sidestep
- 1 Wardancer with ... AG 5
- 1 Catcher with Block
- 1 Rookie thrower
- 1 Line-elf with kick
- 1 Line-elf with block and AG 5 (:))
- 1 Line-elf with Blodge
- 1 Line-elf with block
- 2 Line-elves with dodge
- 1 Line-elf with guard (-edited- how could I forgot I had a lino with guard? )
- 1 Line-elf with dirty player
- 1 Line-elf with a niggling that I use as a crash dummy

I have no idea on what my opponent's skills are but I guess that when we're trying to win with a Khemri team, we don't have much flexibility on the skill choice.

However, I did read a little about the team and I came out with these ideas :

- Try to score in four turns for you receiving half, it will force them to make risky plays that are not including their mummies as they are too slow. Which will drasticly lower their chances of scoring and decently raise your chances of scoring.

- If you ever get a chance, block and foul a lone mummy

- Try to take any lone player of the field as the Khemri stategy strongly depends on outnumbering (skellies with DP are good targets)

- Try to dodge all your players out of their reach as they mainly focus on getting your players out of the field

- When kicking, obviously try to prevent them from making their cage, if you score on their drive, you won

- Force them to play your way, they suck at it

- Foul as much as you can, having the ref watching 'em won't stop them from fouling

Any ideas?

[juck101]

score in two and try and get a defensive score... will put enough pressure on them that you will A) win B) be able to sit back and not get killed.

Kick - run 2-3 players at the ball. Do anything it takes to hit the ball free and try and move it. Thats it tactics wise. To keep your team able to play in the future do not let them have more than one block a turn... good luck as that will be almost impossible but a solid ideal

[Joemanji]

- Foul as much as you can, having the ref watching 'em won't stop them from fouling

I wouldn't foul at all because:

a) If you use assists, you will end up with your players bunched together ... easy to corner. If you are not using assists, the fouls are not going to achieve much anyway.

b) Khemri players have Regenerate, even a CAS only has a 50% chance of sticking.

c) Khemri can afford to lose 30K skeletons more than you can afford to lose 70K linemen. Particularly since they will be doing far more damange than you from blocks.

d) Your best chance of removing Khemri players is to have them sent off. The chances of removing a Skeleton from the game permanently are 8% even if you pass the AV roll. Your chances of permanently removing a Skeleton from the game if he fouls you under the eye are 50%!!! Better odds.

[The Florist]

score in two and try and get a defensive score... will put enough pressure on them that you will A) win B) be able to sit back and not get killed.

Kick - run 2-3 players at the ball. Do anything it takes to hit the ball free and try and move it. Thats it tactics wise. To keep your team able to play in the future do not let them have more than one block a turn... good luck as that will be almost impossible but a solid ideal

Your best chance for a defensive score is before his cage has formed.
So the half you recieve, take your time scoring. You're not reducing your chance for a defensive score by much.
Unless he's running the ball on someone without sure hands you simply won't get it out of his cage without unacceptable losses, if at all.

[matkov]

I'm playing khemry at our league (after 10 rounds I'm first). So some hints (I'm helping an enemy what am I doing ? )

- hire wizard if you can afford it (you will break his cage and score 1 more TD)
- don't foul him, I know it is a pain to look how is he fouling every turn but skellies are really expentable and mumies are hadr to foul out. Not counting he probably have more DP's (so if you start take 1st foul and hope for KO or failed regeneration)
- I always choose to kick with khemry and I lost just one match against dark elfs (coach won coin and choosed to kick) because I can force fast TD and delay TD untill end of half (with me moving last) and scoring 2nd TD in the 2nd round winning 2:1 or 2:0 if I stop my opponent from scoring. If you choose to kick you will have 1 more chance for your KO'ed playes to come back and play in second round.
- dodge away, force mummies to go for it and use AG 5 player's to steal ball from TZ when he fail to pick up it. AG 5 with leap is nightmare for Khemry.
- No matter how I played I was not able to score more than once each half - keep that in mind !!
- save your apothecary for wadancer

Anyway I hope that Khemry will win anyway .

Have a nice day.

[The Florist]

Could be worth it to score fast then use the wizard to try to get 2-0 up by turn five or six.

[TuernRedvenom]

There really is no point in scoring fast vs khemri. You can still turn him over even if he has only 5 or less turns left to equalise. It will even be easier as the khemri team must take a few risks and try to start their cage further up field. Give him 7 turns to equalise and he can afford a slow drive and start his cage in his own half, that means he'll form his cage quicker and he'll take less risks with gfi's and so on making it harder for you to stop the cage forming.

[The Florist]

I'm definitely not going to argue anything Khemri-related with you, with the exception of what a suitable punishment for whoever came up with the positional names is.

My rationale was that it might be easier to do a three turn TD then turn him over for the 2-0 TD before you had lost too many players, but I'll take your word for it.

[TuernRedvenom]

I'm definitely not going to argue anything Khemri-related with you, with the exception of what a suitable punishment for whoever came up with the positional names is.

Force him/her to listen to all Celine Dion albums non stop!

My rationale was that it might be easier to do a three turn TD then turn him over for the 2-0 TD before you had lost too many players, but I'll take your word for it.

Ok, that might be a reason. But still with wood elves I'd try to stall. If you're taking heavy losses but are 2-0 up by turn 4 (giving him still 5 turns) the casualty cascade will probably get to you and you'll lose 3-2 or tie 2-2.
Going up 2-0 vs khemri will always leave you at a huge advantage though.

[habasta]

Stay away from his mummies, with MA 3 they are slow. Get out much skeletons you can.
With AG 2 they have much problems to handle the Ball.
When i played with my Highelves against the khemry he tryed 5 turns to take the ball.
If you are receving try to score in turn 3 or 4. So his cage has problems to come to the endzone.
But always dodge away from his mummies. 1 or two squares. So only one blitz from the mummies and no blocks.

Good luck.

[Coach Alex]

Thanks for the responses, I'll try to remember them. I especially like the idea of buying a wizard. Since my TR is a little too high for my FF, I think I'll give him that little surprise. Plus ... the point is to take advantage of our strengths and our opponent's weaknesses ... and he can't buy any wizard so ...

Well anyway, I'll keep in mind that my guys are wood elves and even if they got the second biggest amount of casualties, they're meant to score, not to fight. So I'll put them out of reach, I'll play smart and be patient, except when I kick, it'll be "go for the ball!". Oh yeah by the way, I always liked to kick it near the LoS, 'cause the sure hands players are always on the back of the field, my players are closer and they generally don't expect that tactic. Since I have an AG5 leaper, I think it might be a good idea to try it once again would it?

Our game is set for thursday ... and since we're the two leading team (hey, I'm first now yééé!) our whole league has decided to watch the fight. It's gonna be great

[Cloggy]

Oh yeah by the way, I always liked to kick it near the LoS, 'cause the sure hands players are always on the back of the field, my players are closer and they generally don't expect that tactic. Since I have an AG5 leaper, I think it might be a good idea to try it once again would it?

You might want to reconsider, depending on the set-up of the Khemri. Khemri are often deployed quite agressively near the LoS, to ensure 3 dice blocks against your linefodder for the mummies. If this is the setup, kick deep, since then you might be able to put a screen of elves between the ball and the line.

Surely, the better Khemri coaches don't fall for this and keep at least 4 players deep to protect them against this.

As a general rule, if you kick later in the half, always kick deep, because it will take 1 turn extra to move the ball away from there. If the pick-up fails first turn they might even run out of time and have to pass the ball (shudder)

[TuernRedvenom]

Definately kick deep! If he fails the pickup he's probably in trouble either case. But if he fails a deep pickup he's in BIG trouble as his mummies are too far away.

[Marcus]

Or you could just write that as "kick where his mummies aren't".

Game plan seems solid. The only exceptions/clarifications I would advise would be the following:

- Don't get into a fouling war. You'll lose.

- Woodelves shouldn't make game plans around scoring within specific timeframes. Woodelves should Always Be Scoring. Woodelves thrive on open play whereas power teams rely on set pieces. Keep the game fast, loose and open and use every square inch of the pitch.

Good luck.

[The Florist]

Or you could just write that as "kick where his mummies aren't".

In other words, kick deep. Or am I missing some of the finer points of using mummies as sweepers?