Help with new dark elf team

[Haar]

I am fairly new to this whole Blood Bowl thing. I have played a Chaos team in three league seasons, under 3e and 2k1 rules. I feel that it is time for me to move on to a new, more agile team. I was torn between the Skaven team and the Dark Elves, but in the end, I think I will go with Dark Elves.

I have a basic team lined up, which is 11 Line elfs, 3 rerolls, and 8 fanfactor. I could swap in a thrower and have 6 fanfactor also. Should I try to stock up on blitzers early, at the cost of a reroll?

I have a handle on what to do with the advancing DEs based on reading some other posts around, but are there any clever Elven tricks you all can suggest so I don't end next season in last place (again)?

[sean newboy]

I would really have 1-2 blitzers (prolly 1) to start, that block will be mighty useful.

[Anthony_TBBF]

I haven't played Dark Elves but I think one of the popular strategies is to use your 4 Blitzers to run the ball and the Witch Elves in that Blitzer roll. Anyone else have any success with that set-up?

[Acerak]

A friend of mine used to develop his Blitzers into catchers and use his Witch Elves as blitzers. It's quite effective.

-Chet

[sean newboy]

He is asking about a starting team, just how many WE and BL 's can he start with?

[Acerak]

He is asking about a starting team, just how many WE and BL 's can he start with?

Well, he can start with 3 Blitzers if he's careful.

8 Linemen (560K)
3 Blitzers (300K)
1 Re-roll (50K)
9 Fan Factor (90K)

Prepare to throw a lot of blocks with your blitzers, but pray you won't have to dodge much. Sooner or later you're going to fail. On the plus side, having 3 Blitzers ensures that someone will be available to throw the blitz that springs one or two of your players without the need for any dodge rolls whatsoever.

If that's too risky for you, try this:

9 Linemen (630K)
1 Blitzer (100K)
1 Thrower (90K)
2 Re-rolls (100K)
8 Fan Factor (80K)

You could always try this if you love Witches:

10 Linemen (700K)
1 Witch Elf (110K)
2 Re-rolls (100K)
9 Fan Factor (90K)

Call them "Diana and the Dominated" or something like that. Make whipping noise every time one of the Linemen has to do something, then say, "Yes, Diana," in a beaten monotone before making the roll. I bet it will work!

-Chet

[Haar]

Thanks for the tips Acerak. I am a little leery of running only one reroll out of the gate though. I had a team like that before and they had a really hard time getting stuff done. Then again, they were AG3, not AG4. How quickly does an AG4 team burn rerolls? Later in the season, when they've all got block or dodge, I won't need the rerolls as much, I suppose, but in the beginning it seems key to have at least two.

[NightDragon]

Personally you need to look to the future. I think 2 re-rolls is important as they are costly to build up. I would go for 2 blitzers, a thrower and the rest linemen. I would then get the apothecary, more blitzers another thrower, the remaing line and the witches last- they are an expensive luxury in my opinion and can be a double edged sword in the early days especially without an apothecary.
Development ideas; line give block and dodge unless you roll a double in which case guard. Ag profile increases meet with pass block. One thrower give dump off. Blitzers develop as blitzers. Be aggressive when trying to get the ball and keep out of tackle zones spreading yourself across the pitch. When you have the ball score as quick as you can. Laters DD. D.Elves are 'Simply The Best'.

[wesleytj]

I always start dark elf teams this way:

1 Blitzer
10 Line Elves
2rr
9ff
10k treas

It works very well for me.

One thing I specifically AVOID doing is buying a thrower early. Every one of your line elves is roughly equal in throwing ability for short throws to a rookie human thrower. Use that! Spread around completions among your line elves to maximize the benefit of those MVP rolls. Then buy a thrower later.

[Trambi]

I will prefer :
2 Blitzers
9 Line Elves
2rr
7ff

1 blitzer to defend, the other to attack (very usefull with mv7 ag4 and block). If you don't fear the critic try with 2ff and 1 apo. But it's very unpopular here

[martynq]

[Disclaimer: Based on my experiences in Galak's MBBL-PBEM league, you shouldn't take to much notice of my opinions.]

The team I began for the MBBL was as follows:

2 blitzers
9 line-elves
2 re-rolls
7 fan factor.

Having Block on two players should have been useful - unfortunately two of my first four games were against Dwarves, which somewhat negated this advantage. It seems that you have to develop a good running game with dark elves - without a thrower and with your only fast guys being the two with Block, it's a bit difficult to develop a decent passing game early on.

My first purchase was an apothecary (of course), followed by a Witch Elf. I disagree that witch elves are expensive luxuries - they are the reason for playing a dark elf team. Without them, you may as well play high elves where you can get your passing game going much earlier.

The witch elves are going to be the blitzer-types: first skill Block and then follow-up with Tackle, etc. The blitzers will turn into my catchers/shadowers/etc.

The trouble, however, is that it takes the team quite a long time to develop into what you want it to be. Expect to lose quite a lot early on - and it would be nice if you can roll them over at the end of the season. If you are only going to play half-a-dozen matches and then have to start over, then there is little point playing dark elves.

Expect to burn a fair amount of re-rolls early on. AG4 is good, but not as good as AG3 with a re-roll skill. AG3 with sure hands picks up 8 times out of 9, while AG4 only 5 times out of 6. Similarly for dodging, but once you have Dodge on almost all your players, you are laughing

Cheers,
Martyn

[wesleytj]

My dark elf team is currently 4-1 despite some really lousy dice rolling in places. Our loss was our first game, and it came in overtime when my opponent rolled a blitz.

And I only started with one blitzer. Now I have 2 blitzers, an apoth, and a witch elf, and am TR 148. And I have our league's only aged player so far, a Movement 5 Line Elf with block...how annoting is that? Makes me sick!

[Haar]

Thanks all for the feedback. I started a team with 9 line, 2 blitzers, 2 RR and 7 FF. Familiar, eh? I tied my first game 1-1 against a rookie lizardmen team. Could have done better, but I made some mistakes and also had a few unfortunate rolls (failed GFI roll to hit the endzone, even with a reroll).

Anybody have some good tips on how to run this running game? I looked on blood-bowl.net for some pointers, but am still new at the whole thing, being used to just wearing down my opponent through attrition.

What I've done so far is try to use my opening blocks and blitz to open a hole in the defense to get some (about 4) guys halfway downfield. Then I get the ball and run with it. Sometimes I would do a short pass, sometimes I would do a handoff (depending on the GFI situation). On D, I keep my guys out of killer situations, exploit TZ holes to blitz the ballcarrier, and keep a few cherry pickers downfield.

I tried lining up in a 3-4-4 defense, it worked okay.

Anything I am missing? My next matchup is against dwarves, and I'm down a player for the match (one of my line elves got a concussion).

[wesleytj]

If you don't fear the critic try with 2ff and 1 apo. But it's very unpopular here

The thing is you can buy the apoth anytime, but the FF is only available at team startup. Now, especially with the new and very painful winnings table (a little too rough imo) you need every point of FF you can get.

Just survive the first game without an apoth (you don't have any great players yet anyway, and your opponent shouldn't have anybody too vicious yet either) and use the extra winnings from your big gate to buy one. Works out WAY better in the long run. Not to mention all those kickoff events that involve FF.

[sean newboy]

Just survive the first game without an apoth (you don't have any great players yet anyway, and your opponent shouldn't have anybody too vicious yet either) and use the extra winnings from your big gate to buy one. Works out WAY better in the long run. Not to mention all those kickoff events that involve FF.

One point here, this is only true for a new team in a new league, if joining an existing and running league i would say to check out what kind of players are on the teams already in the league.