Starting Wood Elf advice

JMGraham · Post by **JMGraham** » Wed Sep 09, 2009 9:07 pm

Hi all -

My club is starting up a BB league, and I'm planning on taking the Woodies. This'll be the first time I've taken them to league play, and the first time I've played BB in what seems like ages.

They'll likely have aa chance to get in 10 or so games before playoffs. Starting teams are 1,000k with 5 FF for free (and no options to buy additional FF).

I've read through some old posts here, and am leaning towards the following line up:

2 Wardancers
1 Thrower
8 Linemen
2 Rerolls
10k banked

I had been considering dropping a wardancer and a linemen for 2 catchers, but the prevailing wisdom seems to be that catchers=SPP hogs early in league play.

My plan is to not over-rely on the throwers, but to try and use linemen for completions and scoring, to get them SPPed up quick.

1st purchase would be an Apothecary, then possibly catchers.

Skill Priority:
Linemen - (Dodge, Block - one with Kick, Guard on Doubles)
Thrower - (Accurate; Leader; Strong arm on Doubles)
Wardancers - (Strip Ball, possibly side-step; grab on doubles?)

How does that sound for a general plan? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Jim

Joemanji · Post by **Joemanji** » Wed Sep 09, 2009 9:14 pm

Looks sound.

I'd be tempted to skill up the Thrower asap and get him Leader first roll. WEs suffer lots of casualties and you'll struggle to get 100K spare for another reroll.

Frenzy is a great skill on the Wardancer who doesn't get Strip Ball btw, and Tackle works well on them too.

Elminster81 · Post by **Elminster81** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 11:16 am

I would recommend at least 1 DP. Your elves will probably not get too much MB, so a way to get rid of that Tackle,MB, Piling On beast on the other side of the pitch is recommended.

mattgslater · Post by **mattgslater** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 2:56 pm

90k Dirty Player on an AV7 side with serious cost-control problems? Not for me, thanks. Dirty Player is a great skill... on a Skel. But you're going to be outnumbered a lot, and won't be able to make good fouls. You're better off man-marking the Beast, zone-marking the Warriors and trying to keep turning the game over to keep him from getting too close. Generally speaking, the way to get rid of horrible monsters is to pin them with zones and hammer/score on the softer stuff around them (depending on the team balance: WEs should be trying to run up the score on Nurgle, but the same equations apply differently against, say, Halflings).

A Dauntless Dancer would be nice as a break-in mechanism, but isn't terribly necessary. A Dodge lino is a good way to man-mark the BoN assuming it doesn't have Block. Side Step is good for protecting your scorers and controlling space even as you lose the bash war (in fact, it really comes into its own if a drive goes badly, by preventing chain-blocks as extra bites at your men). Kick is good for turning the ball over. Except on the BoN and Pestigors, you want to stay a step back from everybody, and even with the BoN or Pesty if you can keep them from blitzing a key spot. If you have a Block or Wrestle lino, you can mark him on a Pestigor (worst case, use a Dancer), assuming your objective is to force a blown action sending in an assist.

bjorn9486 · Post by **bjorn9486** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 4:13 pm

The only advice I can give, and only because it was done to me in a league, we use your lineman as throwers and get them that 1 SPP. Its relatively easy to do, and it sets you up for them getting a skill if they get the MVP. The guy had a skill on every lineman, which made it quite frustrating to keep them down.

JMGraham · Post by **JMGraham** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 4:54 pm

Thanks for the thoughts so far - very helpful! Getting the completions with the linemen sounds like a great idea. When receiving, I'll plan on picking up the ball with a lineman, and then getting a quick pass to the thrower for a longer (hopefully scoring) pass the next turn, or to another lineman if I think it'll take an extra turn to get into scoring position.

Jim

cyagen · Post by **cyagen** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 5:35 pm

Playing Woddies is playing BB on easy mode. Just make sure that you get not a lot of you guys hurt and the team forgives the most dumheaded mistake. My adivce is score quickly, score often. There are not a lot of team that can keep up with that.

Go Dodge, Wrestle on the linos, with the obligatory kick. Tackle or Strip Ball, Frenzy on the Dancers, Leader, Dodge with the Thrower and Wrestle, Sure feet on the catchers.

With that you should be able to play for .500, learn a lot, make tons of mistakes and with a little luck, frustrate the most experienced ork coach...

JMGraham · Post by **JMGraham** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:28 pm

I'm curious - why is wrestle preferrable to block in Wood Elf teams? It seems that having elves on the ground partically negates their speed and ability to dodge away from a standing opponent. Or is the idea that wrestle results in the elves taking fewer blocks and armour saves?

Is Dodge + Wrestle > Dodge + Block?

Jim

bjorn9486 · Post by **bjorn9486** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:56 pm

JMGraham wrote:I'm curious - why is wrestle preferrable to block in Wood Elf teams? It seems that having elves on the ground partically negates their speed and ability to dodge away from a standing opponent. Or is the idea that wrestle results in the elves taking fewer blocks and armour saves?

Is Dodge + Wrestle > Dodge + Block?

Jim

With wrestle, when they hit you, you can bring them down. Then on your turn you get up and move away, and because of your high movement, are hurt less than them. This is especially true against slow teams like dwarves, who's majority of movement is just going to be spent getting back up.

stashman · Post by **stashman** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 7:10 pm

JMGraham wrote:I'm curious - why is wrestle preferrable to block in Wood Elf teams? It seems that having elves on the ground partically negates their speed and ability to dodge away from a standing opponent. Or is the idea that wrestle results in the elves taking fewer blocks and armour saves?

Is Dodge + Wrestle > Dodge + Block?

Jim

I'm with bjorn9486 all the way.

And adding this: Block is great in the begining when few have block so you can even hurt players, BUT Wrestle is great in the long run.

So maybe a few Blocking players for starters and then wrestle (on linemen) all the way.

Make one Wardancer the "Elite Ballhunter" - Strip Ball, Tackle, Wrestle.
Some like Frenzy on wardancers, but you shall know that it can often be a 2db against you if you jump into a cage and try to take out the ballhandler.

Carnis · Post by **Carnis** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 9:00 am

I'd advice you to go Wrestle on all the linemen, not dodge. But I may be a minority, of course you should have 2-3 dodge-linemen as well for the games where you don't face any tackle.

Dodge can be countered with a common skill, tackle. Wrestle can only be countered with a RARE skill-combo, juggernaut+block, and ONLY during blitzes.

3 skill linemen will be rare, so the first 2 have to count. For that it's either block/dodge (keeps your linos alive vs nontacklers) or wrestle+fend (stops opponent cold + avoids piling on).

Welves are easymode in tournaments, and in leagues where there are no suitable opponents for them. I personally have found welves my favourite opponent for a long time, after stacking up with a guard, a surehands ballcarry, a dirty player and a mb/piling on/tackle norse berserker.

That AV7 is just so low, and a treeman essentially has 1/6 chance of "KO:ing" himself out of the game on every action (take root -> any players on his TZ will dodge out and he's out).

mattgslater · Post by **mattgslater** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 12:34 pm

Wrestle is very good on the line, but ball-carriers do better with block. Wrestle is better for rushing the passer, but in coverage a block player is harder to get out of the way. Wrestle is very effective for pinning down killers, while Block is good for beating on schmoes.

Yeah, the above advice about maintaining a rotation of passers is great stuff. If I'd realized you were that new, I would have advised it myself. One thing that a lot of people I've seen do is figure out who will be doing what not based on ability, but rather on improvement potential. On any elf team, you can throw, catch and run with anyone, so you have no reason for any given player to lag on development.

Jural · Post by **Jural** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:47 pm

I would say

Block vs. Nothing > Wrestle vs. Nothing

and

Wrestle vs. Block > Block vs. Block (for elves)

Finally,

Wrestle vs. Wrestle = Block vs. Wrestle.

In most cases, Dodge is actually a better choice

So, as your linemen are skilling up, you need to look around your league and see what is more prevalent, block, nothing, or wrestle.

The only exception are ball hunters (Who should always have wrestle) and ball carriers (who should always have block.)

That's how I skill up my elves, and I try to count on linemen attrition to make sure I have the right linemen at every stage of development!

JMGraham · Post by **JMGraham** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 9:15 pm

Very helpful, thanks for breaking it down like that! It makes sense that, given the rock/paper/scissors aspects of some of the skills, what is most effective depends a lot on what other skills I'll likely run against in the league. I imagine I'll see more block than anything as teams progress. There will be at least one Amazon team and one Orc team (both starting with near max Blitzers). That seems to make tackle pretty worthwhile (for the non-ball carriers).

Jim

Digger Goreman · Post by **Digger Goreman** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 11:58 pm

Advice for a beginning coach on taking wood elves: Grow a pair and switch to something respectable.... Leave the cheese to the little engines who can't....

Otherwise, ... *shrug*....