Talk Fantasy Football

Hi All,

We've just started a league at our gaming club, we're running to an open format with playoffs in June, so I'm hoping to get 12+ games in this season.

My starting team is Wood Elves, I've played a few one-off games with them but never a league format. After a couple of games I'm realising that I'm a lot more careful about leaping the wardancers than I am when there's no long term issues.

Starting team is 2 Wardancers, 1 Catcher, 8 x Line Elves, 2 RR and FF 1

My first game was against a new Orc team. The coach is fairly new to BB and only had the metal team box so started with 2 BoB's, 3 Blitzers, a thrower and 6 Line orcs.

The game ended in a 3-0 win to me, and 1-0 in casualties (I managed to badly hurt his thrower). His main error I think was to use the thrower rather than a blitzer as a ball carrier, which made it easier for the wardancers to take the ball.

My Catcher scored all 3 touchdowns and rolled for a normal skill increase - I gave him block. I received 60k in match winnings which I used 50k of to buy an apothecary.

My Second game was against halflings, and a more experienced coach. Luckily he fluffed his master chef roll in the first half, so I had re-rolls and managed to score twice, despite a pitch invasion which left 6 of my players stunned in the first turn (Curse that damn +2 FAME!)

The second half was really tough though - the chef stole all my re-rolls and I spent about 4 turns in a row turning over due to a string of rolled ones. Due to this I was unable to dodge my line away from the trees, and they managed 3 serious injuries to my line elves, all of which he managed to roll a DEAD result for

I managed to convert one to MNG with the apoth but I conceded a touchdown and the game finished 2-1 to me with 1-3 against on casualties. I managed 60k of winnings but had no imrovement rolls to make.

My team now looks like this:
THE BOY BANDITS:
Matt Goss Wardancer 3 SPP
Robbie Williams Wardancer 2 SPP
Simon Le Bon Catcher 9 SPP (Block)
Tony Hadley Line Elf 5 SPP (MNG)
Ronan Keating Line Elf 3 SPP
Justin Timberlake Line Elf 2 SPP
Dane Bowers Line Elf 0 SPP
Stephen Gately Line Elf 0 SPP
Peter Andre Line Elf 0 SPP
2 RR
FF 3
Treasury: 70,000

So, I'll be having 3 line punchbags for my next match (Hopefully tonight) with a Team Value of 1,090,000.

We have Nurgle, Chaos, Norse & Human teams in our league, as well as the Orcs & Haflings I've already played. I also hear one friend is planning on bringing a 'hitty' Skaven team with no Gutter Runners - not sure how long that will last...

So to my knowledge I'm the only straight agility team in the league at the moment. I was thinking of buying another Line Elf rather than rely on Journeymen, but am seriously considering saving for a treeman instead - I think this will save my players from being beaten up so much, at least until the Chaos/Nurgle/Skaven teams get claw players...

Any comments about team developement would be welcome!

Thanks
Spiky

Tough luck against the Flings. Even though I always enjoy a story where a Stunty team gives it to a normal team.

Development:
First off, you can score easily and have all the skills that allows you to do so. Forget about offensive skills, concentrate on defence.
War Dancers get Strip Ball and Side Step first. On Doubles, take Mighty Blow. These guys are your cage busters.
Catchers all get block first to keep them alive. Then it depends on your opponents. And as you can have 4 of these guys, develop them a bit differently. I don't see too much passing happening in your league. So I would not take Pass Block. But some Dauntless with Tackle makes them very good at taking down opposing catchers. These guys are your safeties. After block, you can also give them Side Step and Diving Tackle. Shadowing can be added to that as well to make them even more annoying.
One thrower gets Accurate then Safe Throw. On doubles, Strong Arm. Offensive Thrower
If you want a defensive thrower, he gets Dodge, Sure Hands, then Accurate and Safe Throw. He picks-up the ball once one of your other players has made it drop to the ground.
Linemen: First skill is Kick on one. Then Dodge everywhere. I like to have one with Wrestle and Strip Ball, followed by Leap on my Dark Elf team, but that is a bit redundant on a Wood Elf team. Once Dodge, Block and a bit of wrestle. On doubles, get Guard on these guys.

Spreading out SPPs. Don't always score with your catchers. Try to score with your linemen, and use the Catchers as decoys. Try to get one completion with every lineman so that they get a skills if they get an MVP. To get a really good Wood Elf team (and it applies to any of the Elves), you need to develop all your players. They are all AG4, so they all can throw and catch. Facing a team with more than 11 blodgers with a few ball extraction specialists is a nightmare to any opposing team.

Spiky wrote: I also hear one friend is planning on bringing a 'hitty' Skaven team with no Gutter Runners - not sure how long that will last...

Let us know how that goes. Never seen this tried before.

I agree with most of what Cramy says, except for the Wardance development. The first skill on one of your Wardancers should be Frenzy, then Sidestep. The other one Strip Ball, then Sidestep...

I play Dark Elves mostly. The same basic rules apply to any agility team in a hit-heavy league.

Get as many players as you can with block/dodge. It'll help keep them on their feet for use during play and to keep them from being hurt as much. Mix the block and dodge as your players get 6 SPP. You'll want to give a few players block so you can knock holes in the opposition line, then give the rest dodge.

As you only have 2 rerolls, you're gonna want to give some of your players a few ball handling skills so you can save your rerolls for you blocks and leaps. Sure hands is an important one. And get a thrower or two. You're going to want them for the long term.

Stay away from all those hitters as much as you can. Once you get developed you can take on the Norse and Humans, but you don't want to get into fist fights any more than you need to in order to score. dodge away from them as much as possible. Only let them hit you once or twice a turn, that includes their blitz.

Always remember, no matter who has the ball, you're on offense. Elves are best when they are expecting to score on any turn. When you are on defense, you're on offense. Leave a catcher or lineman downfield in range of scoring, then attack the ball. Take it and chuck it out of the immediate area, run it downfield and hand off to your downfield guy and score. Or, run it out, then pass it to your scorer. Which ever.

Don't bother buying another line until you get more positionals. 2 throwers and at least 1 more catcher. You're really gonna want to have all the skills those players come with against all this bash teams.

2 things. In a bashy league - go for the tree!
Blowing the 70K in a lineelf, when the journeymen does the job almost as well is a waste, IMO.

Secondly - sounds like nobody here knows the skill wrestle.
Everybody talks about block and dodge.
I'd throw in some wrestle dodge too.
Wrestle will let you have a decent shot at opposing blodgers, even though you haven't gotten around to taking tackle. And on defense, wrestle is sweet. Pull down your opponent, then get up first with your MA7 players and start causing problems.

Cheers
Martin

Thanks for the advice!

I had my third game last night - played against a Norse team, and it was a really hard fought affair. The opposing coach was as good as me and we both made it as difficult as possible for each other to score, but he only had 11 players for the match, after taking a drubbing vs Orcs in the game before, so it made it a bit hard for him to bring weight of numbers against me.

I'm feeling the pain of only having only 2 rerolls, as I kept failing pickups and managed to score on turn 4 when receiving in the first half. The fans got the ref when he received and I managed to foul a downed Ulfwerener, which now has -1AV. He was prevented from equalising in turn 8 due to a failed GFI into the endzone. Is it me or does the GFI into the endzone always fail more than elsewhere? Maybe my pitch is just rougher in this area

Neither team succeeded to score in the 2nd half, and the ball changed possesion very regularly so the game finished 1-0 to me and 1-1 on causalties (injured journeymen! )

My Team now looks like this:
THE BOY BANDITS:

Match Record: W 3 / D 0 / L 0

Matt Goss Wardancer 3 SPP
Robbie Williams Wardancer 4 SPP
Simon Le Bon Catcher 12 SPP (Block)
Dane Bowers Line Elf 1 SPP
Ronan Keating Line Elf 9 SPP (Kick)
Stephen Gately Line Elf 1 SPP
Peter Andre Line Elf 0 SPP
Justin Timberlake Line Elf 2 SPP
Tony Hadley Line Elf 5 SPP
2 RR
FF 4
Treasury: 120,000

I am seriously considering purchasing the treeman with my winnings as I think he'll help keep the rest of the team intact, although either a catcher or another RR are attractive choices...

Thanks again for the feedback - I'll try to keep spreading the SPPs! I'll try a good spread of block, dodge and wrestle on the Linelves too!
Regards,
Spiky

You really want to get an apothecary first. WE always need one. Then buy the tree, then a thrower, then the other players.

Definately keep spreading the SPPs around. You really need to keep them all improving until they all have at least 2 skills. After that, you can build some into star players.

I don't think that you should have given Ronan Keating kick. He's got a bit of bulk, whereas Stephen Gately will fall over in a bit of a breeze. You should have given kick to Gately and gotten Block on Keating.


Not that it matters. First rock team they come up against, they're all creamed anyway.

whitetiger wrote:You really want to get an apothecary first.

Whoops - yes I'm sorry I did buy an apothecary already with the winnings of my first match. He's already saved 1 linelf from death so made his money back.

tenwit wrote:I don't think that you should have given Ronan Keating kick. He's got a bit of bulk, whereas Stephen Gately will fall over in a bit of a breeze.

I would hold-off on the tree. The problem with the tree is that he's good against bashy teams, but close to useless against fast teams. It's not that bad for you as there are no AG4 players in your league (no GRs !!!), but still. The first thing I do against a tree is dodge away, even if I'm AG2. Wait till the end of the turn, then dodge away. Especially if the tree has taken root, it doesn't matter too much if the Zombie falls over. Next turn, he stands up and scrambles to join the action. At that point you outnumber the Woodies. In some drives, you don't want to field the tree. I would get throwers and catchers first. Once you have 13 players with the Wood Elf positionals you want, get the tree. That way your are not forced to field him.

Hi Cramy,

I see what you mean, it is a risk but fielding the tree means I have one less AV7 player being punched every time I set up to kick. I think he will increase my team's survivablility and also allow me to invest in more positionals.

Developing the line elves seems to be key in the strategy posts I've read, and having to field journeymen each game doesn't really help towards this.

If the tree forces my opponent around into either wide zone, I think this can only benefit me as he has less space to run the ball in and therefore less options

Cheers
Spiky

Hi,

I've had a couple more games since the last update - I purchased the Treeman with my winnings, and I’ve found that people are shying away from him on the LOS, which is great. A couple of times my opponents didn’t leave any players in the centre area of the pitch when receiving, so moving the Treeman at the start of my next turn meant I had a clear avenue down which to send players ball hunting

First game was against a TR100 human team - the coach took and extra reroll and BB Babe as inducements.
The game went badly for me and as I failed to collect the ball when receiving on the first drive and left myself open.

Final score was 2-3 against and 0-2 against on casualties, with 2 line elves missing the next match, and one picking up a niggle. I gained strip ball on a Wardancer though, and the second skill roll for my Catcher came up as +1 MA! The elf with the niggling injury got the MVP and I elected for dodge.

My second game was against a Nurgle team, the current top team in our league. I was able to gain an extra reroll and a BB Babe in inducements. The guy has a +AG beastman with block which was his main ball handler, so I tried targeting the beast as much as possible. I won the toss and scored in turn 2, however one of my journeymen failed a dodge at the end of turn 1 and was badly hurt. I then broke my opponent's drive with the strip baller and scored again in turn 5. He managed to score back in his turn 8 of the first half.

Second half saw the weight of numbers against me with a couple of KO's not recovering, however I managed to steal the ball once more and run in the TD. The next drive I was still down on players, and my opponent started to move the ball down one flank.

My strip baller again did the business, and the catcher picked up the ball but was unable to make the short pass to the other Wardancer due to combined disturbing presence modifiers. The Wardancer with Strip Ball then got pushed into the crowed who killed him. I used my apothecary but the re-roll also came up as dead

The opposing coach was able to recover the scattered ball and make the TD in his turn 8, leaving me with one turn so I set the catcher on the LOS and prayed for the quick snap result to give me a scoring chance, the Nurgles had pretty much all set up on the LOS so I made a couple of blocks and my 2 remaining journeymen managed to both injure a rotter, and a pass for SPP purposes.

Final score was 3-2 to me and 2-1 to me on casualties

Match Record is now: W 4 / D 0 / L 1

The team looks like this:

Matt Goss Wardancer 11 SPP (Strip Ball?)
Simon Le Bon Catcher 16 SPP (Block, +1MA)
Dane Bowers Line Elf 1 SPP
Ronan Keating Line Elf 11 SPP (Kick)
Stephen Gately Line Elf 1 SPP
Peter Andre Line Elf 0 SPP
Justin Timberlake Line Elf 7 SPP (Dodge, Niggling Injury)
Tony Hadley Line Elf 6 SPP (Wrestle?)
Daniel O'Donnell Treeman 5 SPP
Apothecary
2 RR
FF 5
Treasury: 100,000

2 players developed 1st skills in the last game – I’m tempted to take Strip ball on the remaining Wardancer and Wrestle on the Line Elf.

I think I’ll save money for a replacement Wardancer, although another Catcher or a Reroll seem to be both tempting choices…

Thanks for reading
Spiky

Keep your money for a Wardancer.

You saw how effective Strip Ball is, especially at low TV. Get Strip Ball on the Wardancer that skilled-up. His next skill is Side Step so that he don't get pushed in the crowd. Also allows you to tag a corner of the cage. Hitting the Wardancer can mean having the Wardancer pushed next to the ball carrier.

For the Line Elf, I'd take Dodge. But Wrestle is a good choice as well.

Cramy wrote: You saw how effective Strip Ball is, especially at low TV. Get Strip Ball on the Wardancer that skilled-up.

I would take Frenzy for the 1st Wardancer skill.

And Dodge on the lino.

and here I thought that WE could not become more gay... then I saw this team, named "Boy bandits"... as if tights n redicules hair was not enough.