Talk Fantasy Football

I was reading the rules again last night, checking out norse as I think my next opponent is using them, when I came across the comments at the end of the teams section saying several teams were deliberately hard to play. Several in there I completely agree with, vampires have me in fits for example, but I was surprised to see dark elves in there.

Anyone else see them as one of the most challenging teams to run?

They have decent armour so they're not as fragile as some teams.
They have decent speed.
They have great agility.
They have top notch blitzers.
They have witch elves
The runner and assassin were decent changes but hardly stellar

The new rules on journymen filling out the roster to 11 means you start fewer games with half a team as well!

The only downsides I see are that you don't get a big guy, but they're usually a mixed blessing, and they're expensive so you tend to get outnumbered. Neither of these counters the benefits IMO.

They have an unfocused style. While they are good all rounders, they aren't especially good at any one thing (at least not compared to teams like Dwarves which are probably the best bashy team, or Wood Elves which are the best running team). The fact any mistakes will cause you to take a serious beating doesn't help either.

They also, on the whole, lack Block. While this can be quickly shorted in a league, the first few games can be painful for your Witch Elves or Linesmen. Lacking Dodge also means pain if you need to dodge through an enemy line.

The high price of their best players hurts as well.

They are still a good team, but they require skill to use correctly. Bashy teams without high AV, S or Block is tough.

~Andromidius

They'll suffer early in a league without ball handling skills.
No strength access means that, later on, they start to get hurt more..(As MB and guard pile up on other teams.)

They excel at playing an opposite game. Whatever your opponent does, you do the opposite.

...and yeah, crazy expensive players

For some reason, no matter who coaches them, they die very easily.
Sometimes even more so than flings.

grampyseer wrote:They'll suffer early in a league without ball handling skills.
No strength access means that, later on, they start to get hurt more..(As MB and guard pile up on other teams.)

They excel at playing an opposite game. Whatever your opponent does, you do the opposite.

...and yeah, crazy expensive players

That's exactly it. I've been playing DE for years. I've got to score a lot and put every protective skill I can on every elf and they still will die. Due to the style that is kind of forced on them, they have to fight it out more than other elf teams, which means more injuries and deaths. They're too slow to just jet past other teams like high elves and wood elves do. So, you play the agility game as much as possible against a bash team, and bash on other elves. And every amour and injury roll is a heart attack for the coach. That 110,000 witch elf with 50 SSP points is fairly fragile with 7 AV, and yet she is one of the bashiest players you've got. Don't play Dark Elves if you have a bad heart or shaky nerves.

And man OH man, you want to see someone wet their pants in anticipation of a foul.....Lay a witch elf down...

grampyseer wrote:And man OH man, you want to see someone wet their pants in anticipation of a foul.....Lay a witch elf down...

Yep, almost as much fun as that downed wardancer....

Darkson wrote:

grampyseer wrote:And man OH man, you want to see someone wet their pants in anticipation of a foul.....Lay a witch elf down...

Yep, almost as much fun as that downed wardancer....

Yeah, but Wardancers are sooo good out of the gate, it's almost irrelevant if you lose one that doesn't have some sort of Stat increase. Even doubles rolls are only make them slightly better.

Witch Elves need Block before they really shine, and one more skill.

Couldn't agree more with landrover, despite mainly AV 8 my Dark Elves can't seem to survive a game with more than 5 or 6 players left on the pitch.

Besters

Actually its more about the unusual starting skills meaning that you probably want to learn how to play with another team before picking them up.

Aye, the fact the Runners start with Dump Off is an odd one. It's not a hugely useful skill to start off with, say compared to Dodge or Catch.

~Andromidius

Due to the expense of the players, you can't field a witch elf right away, so that means you start with 1 runner with dump off, 2 blitzers with block, 8 linemen with nothing, 3 rerolls, and a couple of FF. That's it. I know some guys only start with 2 rerolls and upgrade a lineman to a witch, but then you can't handle the ball past the 3rd or 4th turn. Unike all other agility teams, you don't have a thrower, you don't have a catcher and you don't have any other positionals worth buying. (I know, some guys swear by assassins, but I've been playing DE for years and they aren't worth the expense. Only good against slow, low armour, if there's lots of flings in your league, go for it.)

So, you have to begin league play with a good start and get some players with upgrades right away, or they can't protect themselves and they'll get chewed up. I know a lot of people say they have a great running game, well, yeah, after at least 6 or 7 games. Not before that. You can't block anybody and you're not fast enough to outrun them. So, you throw to get SPPs. Without passing or catching skills and few rerolls.

Like I said, if you have a weak heart or bad nerves, don't take 'em.

Because they start really slow - without great luck you'll lose your first few games as your re-rolls disappear far too quickly. After that they are a good team until the bashers start stacking MB/Claw/PO and then their expensive positionals cost you.

You do not need to start with any Fan Factor.

If you want 3 Rerolls you could go with
2 Blitzers & 2 Runners
or even 1 Runner, 1 blitzer & 1 Witch

If you want to try Bashing you could go with 2 Rerolls,
3 Blizers & 1 Witch
or 4 Blizers & 1 Runner

I would say you need Fan Factor to start with. Not much, but a bit. Without it you'll get very low Gates, and thus not much money.

And I don't even want to think about a game with two teams with 0 Fan Factor. That's an automatic 0 Gate, thus there are no fans!

~Andromidius