Talk Fantasy Football

I'm hoping for some help on how to win with my high elves against a dwarf team. Both teams are on a Team Rating of 200.

Through some quirk I haven't played the against the dwarves as yet, but I know they have chugged along nicely, and in fact are the only team to have beaten a high TR Wood Elf team this season. This game is the final for entry into the BloodBowl.

I'm aware of the Dwarven grind tactic, which comes up on the board occasionally. But I need to know how to beat this tactic.

I don't have any intelligence on the dwarf team, apart from knowing that he has a death roller.

My High Elves - I've got 2 good blitzers, both with Dodge, MB & Tackle, one with Dauntless, I've got 4 out of 7 of my liney's with Block, and of those four three have an extra skillup - Dodge, Guard, & +1 AG.

I have 3 catchers, each with Pass Block, and one with +1AG & Leap. And finally 2 throwers, one with KO Return and the other with Accurate,Sure Hands, NoS, & Strong Arm

So, how do I win this game?

I see three obvious "strategies" -
1) - Cause a turnover - easier said then done on a Dwarf team with lots of guard
2) - Make him score faster than he wants to - which I suppose means either threatening the ball carrier or damaging his 'outside the cage' players a lot, once again easier said then done with that Dwarven armour
3) - Delay him so much that he doesn't manage to grind all the way to the endzone in the half.

So any old hands out there want to expose the dwarven weakness and show me how to win.

(If it matters - I have to date been able to reliably score in 2 turns against most other teams.)

Thanks.

I assume you have a line-elf with Kick that will allow you to put the ball deep and once one of your (NICE) Blitzers cracks a hole in the D you can flood the runner with High Elf chasers.

Force the turnover as best you can and score as often and as quickly as you can.

against a Dwarf team with TR 200 you must be looking at at least 6 Guard players so it will not be easy.

Best of luck to you.

The great advantage you have over the dwarves is that you can score much easier.
The dwarves are slow and they don't score so many TDs per match.

(maybe this is to basic but what the hack...)
A good tactics is to always have a or two player on there side of the field in defense (in long bomb range). This forces him to have atleast 1 player beside him and dwarves are the best when they play shoulder to shoulder.
Take out his trollslayers as almost every dwarf player love his slayers (and they're only AV8).
Force him to move his players. As they're slow and has low AG they love to tie up all your player and grind them. Don't let this happen.
Don't underestimate their passing game. Runners can take Passing skills and blitzers has AG3, when you think you're ok a long pass flies over your head and you're in deep sh... (though, you have a couple pass blocks).

- If you can choose to kick first (hope that you have kick skill). Try to put screen of at least 3 players between his ball handler and LOS, even better try to put some tackle zones on ball carrier.
- Hit his slayers and runners with those MB Blitzers.
- Do not get involved in fight, especially do not let your Guard player in middle of fight - he is to valuable to loose him. Use him as mobile assist and in case you have a chance to strike player with ball.
- Dedicate one lineman to Roller as suicidal distraction in order to keep him away from your more valuable players.
- Leave at least one player skulking in position from which TD is feasible.
- Try to put your leaping, Pass block Catcher close to place where he try to form cage - and if there is pass - surprise him.
- Never forget that his slayers have frenzy!!!
- Let him chase your fast players all around field - even without GFI you can move to whenever you want much faster then dwarves and if he want to put some tackle zones on your players he will need at least two so you will have numerical advantage.
- If he manage to make cage (and have a lot of guards) do not be overzealous trying to stop him, use the standard dodge tactics and threaten to push out of the field players who are not caged. Usually players left out are slayers or runners so try if you manage to hurt/push out some of them it will be great.
- Don't be afraid for your players - you will loose them anyway so make the count while they are still on the field.

Why not on the level of some of the guys here – I’ll give you my advice anyway.

The lack of the skill kick is hurting you here – doubably so against dwarfs, while creating quick turnovers isn’t your main tactic normally (like say skaven) it is the best course of action against ‘caging’ teams – of which Dwarves are the ultimate.

So what does that actually mean?
1) Get the ball deep and to the side at kick off – this is for two main reason, makes the dwarves have to travel nearly twice as far and allows you to then try and gain local superiority deep in his half.

Now lets not kid ourselves here, this normally doesn’t work, the Thickheaded Dwarf will most likely have got the ball within a nice pocket and will be feeling smug. How do we overcome such bearded smugery?

2) Be Patient, your only aim should be to stop him moving, if Dwarves don’t slowly move each go they will start to panic. The best way to do this is to set-up 1 square away from the cage, try cover the sides as well cause you don’t want the box to be moving around you. A few turns of this and the Dwarven discipline will start to break down, hopefully leaving you free to attack a weakness.

3) If you’re going to attack the cage, do it from the back and sides. You don’t want to give the front people easy movements/blocks but you want the back people to get engaged by your players, hopefully that way they will not be defending the cage the next turn, Why do I do it from the back/side, because that way you can easily dodge away and get in contact with the (hopefully now surrounded) cage. If you come from directly behind you will have a big beard to get around.

4) Push them slowly towards to side, this will help you predict which way will go (by reducing his options) and leads to one of my favourite defensive positions.

X are Dwarves E are Elves.
----------------------------------------------------------------- Side of Pitch Touch down Zone
X X X E1 E1
X X X E
X X X E3
.........E
....E2 E2
....E


Obviously leaving a 1 space gap between you and the edge and the cage. I’ve seen cages have real problems get past this kind of defense. The numbers 1 and 2 are the most important IMO, E3 the least, Try it see how you get on. Sometimes I stop them, sometimes I don’t, most times they get through by breaking infield around the line.

5) Turn any mistake quickly around – they may go wrong – you want to punish this asap, therefore always leave a player within scoring position.

6) Never Ever Ever score quickly when you receive – move heaven and earth to take at least 4 turns before you do. Remember he will also have that ‘extra’ turn so three turns used for you is only two for him. Have a Dwarf use 3 turns before you score and you will really start to see him sweat!


7) Finally and this is the big one, you want to win against Dwarfs? Its actually really easy as long as you have the right prep, which in this case is 150k inducements. Just Buy a Wizard, a Wizard can ruin any dwarven box allowing you to nip in and get the ball, Once that perfect Dwarf drive has been disrupted they will only be able to score once, you at these twice ego….

So all the above will have been known to you I’m sure and probably already on this thread (wrote post during work day – Keeps me sane! But I miss out on updates)

Now I’ll give you some advice – which I think goes against quite a lot of advice on this board so please feel free to completely disregard this last advice.

If you win the toss I allow them to receive the first turn! Why do I do that? Well, its quite a simply theory really, The hardest thing I will do all match is try and get the ball from them. They are much more likely to weaken me as the match goes along as I am to weaken them, therefore the best chance I have of stealing that ball is straight away when I’m at my strongest. Therefore I put bashy teams into bat first. May be madness!

Well that’s pretty much everything. I would wish you luck but I always want Dwarves to win. Far to many Elf lovers at there afterall.

So Grogmir regretfully saying “Come on you Dwaves!â€

either stop the cage forming, if you fail with that then stop it moving towards your endzone

you don't need to attack the back of the cage, especially if it makes your front defence weaker

the idea is to keep him out the endzone, if you can achieve that you should score when he kicks to you giving you the 1-0 win

my dwarves have only been beaten twice, both by the same plyer, but with dark elves (didnt surprise me, massive diff in TR) and vamps. he was very good at stretching my dwarfs and using his vamps effectively.

dwarfs can deal with st4. they can cope with ag4, but they have trouble when theyre faced with both.

its hypnotic gaze that does the damage against dwarfs

Grumbledook wrote:its hypnotic gaze that does the damage against dwarfs

Agreed. If Stars are allowed and you have the spread get Edril. Fantastic cage breaker.

Played this game tonight, and I won it 3-0.

I received first, and despite my attention to drag out the TD so as not to give the other coach time to grind out his first TD in that half, he was able to seperate out my tema inot little clusters and they were in real danger of coping a pounding, so I flicked a pass downfield and ran it in in turn 2.

He started the typical Dwarf drive, including having the Deathroller on the pitch, I delayed the cage as mauch as possible, and nearing the endzone he made a minor positioning error and I was able to get a blitzer in to deliver a 1 dice block - bam, ball is lose on teh ground, my thrower zooms in scoops up the ball flicks it downfield and one of my cathcers takes an extra turn to run it in!

The third TD was due to luck of my inducement card (We play MBBL rule fo 100k for cards for each coach) I got Lewd manueveres and having funneled his cage into a wide zone, played the card, on my second turn was able to blitz the ball lose and send it downfield again.

A good game, I must admit I was possibly a little lucky in my opponents fairly ordinary armour & injury rolls, however I did a reasonable job of minimising the blocks he could make on me so fair enough I guess.

On to the Bloodbowl to play the Wood Elves!!

Once you got the 2nd TD in the first half, the match was over. And you didn't even have to worry about the deathroller in the 2nd half!