Defense & Offensive Seutps for Elf teams in General..

Firest0rm · Post by **Firest0rm** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:26 pm

Hi, I'm fairly new to playing Blood Bowl and am seeking some pictures/layouts for Offense and Defense. I know each of their playing styles are a bit different but I'd like to find some with some descriptions/pictures perhaps. Thanks for any help that is sent my way.

mattgslater · Post by **mattgslater** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 8:04 pm

There are a lot of ways to run an elf defense. What have you been doing so far?

I'll come back with a better answer later, but in the short run, here are a few general principles:

1) Don't let your guys get mobbed. Elves who can't dodge to the clear or hit with an advantage tend to get hurt. Either use the line to bolster the backfield and make a net to keep people out, or set up your backfield more deeply and use distance to keep from getting surrounded.

2) Never set up more than 3 on the defensive line. On the offense, don't be afraid to stack up if you want to hurry up and score, provided you think you can knock down the defensive line.

3) There are two schools of thought for team development, and they're not at all exclusive. There are coaches who build fundamental skills like Block and Dodge and those who go for positioning skills like Kick and Side Step. Kick is huge, and I don't think anyone will disagree. I think Side Step is great on any player who's likely to get hit on turn 1: I try to get it on both corners to defend the wide zone and on both ends of the d-line (or just in the middle), before Block/Dodge/Wrestle (or on a Blitzer-type). Others prefer Block and Dodge in some or all of those positions, or Wrestle on the line, with Side Step as a second or third selection.

4) The different elf teams all have noticeable differences in their defensive styles. High and Dark Elf teams are often more aggressive with their liniemen, as AV8 makes the overall protective value of neighboring players' support less critical. Wood Elf teams sometimes sport ST6 or ST2 players or both, and this plays into their setup strategy significantly. There are other differences (nobody passes on developed Pro Elves...).

Somewhere down on page 2 or 3 is a really excellent discussion of Dark Elves. I can't give you one absolute diagram. Maybe I'll come back with several variants in a few hours or days. What kind of elf team do you plan to play? That'll make it easier.

Johnny Blade · Post by **Johnny Blade** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 1:04 am

Yeah, I second that question: What Elf team?

I can only really offer some help with Dark Elves, for example, although some of it could probably be applied to High and Pro Elves as well.

Wood Elves are a different beast altogether, though. Placing Catchers when you inevitably lose players is hard.

Patchwork · Post by **Patchwork** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 2:50 pm

Seeming Pro Elves lost the Pro from the start of their name somewhere along the line and are now just "Elf" in the rule book, he probably means them.

mattgslater · Post by **mattgslater** » Sat Jun 06, 2009 3:25 pm

The Slater Defense* with Pro Elves (the original Slater Defense team race)
viewtopic.php?t=26429&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Another Pro Elf discussion
viewtopic.php?t=26947

* As a protest of the lack of effective defensive terminology, I am naming the "inverted" defense the Slater Defense. If any of you has a better idea let me know. As far as I know I'm the first one to expound it for early team development, though elements of it have long been incorporated into high TV teams. It's heavily reliant on Side Step in both wide zones and either Side Step or Stand Firm across the LOS (or at least on both ends), and lets you protect four safeties instead of just two. This maximizes the value of Leap on a pair of Catchers, and lets you buy toolbox skills a little earlier in your progression. On the line of scrimmage, Side Step has about the same player-saving effect as Block or Dodge by preventing chain blocks. However, the core principle of the defense is that no more than 1/4 of all drives should be allowed to last longer than 3 turns. If you stick in for a long time, you'll feel the effects of waiting to take Block or Dodge.

If you're down a Blitzer, you can invert only one side. This only lets you protect three players, but usually that's enough. As an extension of my protest, I'm going to call this the Half-Slater. It works really well on a bash team: either take a runner-type (Ghoul, Norse Runner, Were) with Blodge and SS, or take it as a double on a Blitzer, then protect the other side with Stand Firm and Guard. Any way you hack it, it's all the same: keep the action on the other guy's half and you're more likely to score than he is.

This defense has a lot of detractors. Bypassing "fundamental" skills in favor of "positioning" skills kind of violates the common wisdom, which says "positioning skills are great once the basics are covered." I say "positioning is the basis and a positioning skill is a basic skill."