Disclaimer: I'm not exactly the greatest or most successful High Elf coach out there.
But since I'm the one answering, here are my thoughts:
First, before you even set up a single figure on defense, you need to ask yourself some questions:
1) Do you need to take the ball away from your opponent and score from defense? Or is it enough to just stop them from scoring?
2) How quickly are you expecting your opponent to try to score? Are you defending the 2-turner or a long grind?
Either way, any discussion of defense you hear is going to talk about the "Double Rows" formation. That means columns of two players, one behind the other, each spaced two apart from each other. Like this:
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. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
. x . .|x . . x . . .|. . . .
. x . .|x . . x . . .|. . . .
. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
Those six players have locked down your whole left side. Your opponent won't be able to get through that without some super lucky dodges, stunty, Leap, or some other similar stunt. (Slann will laugh at you, of course).
It takes 10 players to wall off the whole field that way, so it's not workable as an initial setup, rather as a goal for how your defense should look on turn 2, 3, etc ...
IF you just need to stop your opponent from scoring:
Wall off the field. Start off with most of that column formation built up, put some dodgers on the line*, like this:
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. . . .|. d . d . d .|. . . .
. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
. x . .|x . . . . . x|. . x .
. x . .|x . . . . . x|. . x .
. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
* - don't put dodgers on the front line against Dwarves or any team with a lot of tackle.
They'll knock down your front line, but hopefully two will be able to dodge out and complete the formation:
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. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
. x . .|x . . d . . x|. . x .
. x . .|x . . d . . x|. . x .
. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
What happens next depends on your opponent. Some will try to run up and tag your formation; block/blitz them down every round if possible, or dodge one square backwards otherwise. Some will try to blitz one player per turn and then run away, just reposition whenever possible.
Just remember:
- This is problematic against a team with Frenzy, your opponent will try to crowd surf your players off the sidelines. Sidestep counters that nonsense, so the top left and top right players there should be sidestep Blitzers if you have them.
- This won't stop the Slann offense. The only thing that can stop the Slann offense is the Slann coach running out of rerolls.
- Your opponent will complain that this is "boring" or "lame". That's a compliment, it's code for "I expected to be able to easily run up the score and farm a lot of star player points, stop playing defense and let me score already!!".
- The other downside is that you'll play some low scoring games. But right now I'm assuming you're trying to win first, farm star player points second.
If you need to score from defense:
This is hard and is probably going to hurt. But it's awesome when it works.
The easiest way to score from defense is to kick deep (Kick helps), roll Blitz! or hope for an early turnover, run behind the opponent's front line, grab the ball, score. Easy. That takes a lot of luck, and you have to assume that your opponent will get the ball safe in a cage.
Cage-breaking takes commitment and you're going to get blocked.
If your opponent's cage looks like this: (o=opponent, b=ball carrier)
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. . . .|. o . o . . .|. . . .
. . . .|o . b . . . .|. . . .
. . . .|. o . o . . o|. . o .
. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
. . . .|. . . . . . .|. . . .
Build your "colums" in front of whichever side your opponent is going up, and blitz a cage corner, tag up the rest of the cage:
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. . . .|. o . o . . .|. . . .
. . . x|o . b . . . .|. . . .
. . . x|. x o o . . o|. . o .
. . . .|. x . . . . .|. . . .
. . . .|. . . x . . x|. . x .
. . . .|. . . x . . x|. . x .
You've got a player on his ball carrier, all that your opponent can do is try to block or blitz you away. He won't be able to free up his cage entirely, and you'll be able to block down a corner and blitz the Ball Carrier. Then just pick up the ball and score ...
Key skills:
Strip Ball, Tackle, Sidestep, Block/Dodge.