Fell Elf Team

[MalicWanderer]

For a while now I've been thinking it would be cool to have a team that mixed high and low agility players. The way Lizards mix high and low strength, or necro mixes high and low movement. But I was at a loss as to what the theme of such a team would be. Then, while I was watching The Sage stream BB2 someone in the chat made a joke about undead elves. Aha! And thus, after a few hours of thinking and tinkering, the Fell Elves were born (I'm not super fond of this name for the team, but I haven't come up with anything better yet. If you do, please share.)

Code: Select all

Qty Title           Cost    MA  ST  AG  AV  Skills                        Normal Double
16  Linemen         50,000  6   3   2   7   Regeneration, Thick Skull       G     ASP
2   Wood Wraiths    80,000  5   3   2   8   Decay, Regeneration,            GS    AP
                                            Stand Firm, Thick Skull
2   Runners         100,000 7   3   4   7   Regeneration, Sprint            GA    SP
2   Bonedancers     110,000 7   3   2   7   Block, Dodge, Regeneration      GS    AP
2   Revenants       110,000 6   3   4   7   Dauntless, Regeneration, Stab   GA    SP

Rerolls: 60,000
No apothecary allowed.

The idea is that each of the undead elves maintains some aspect of their prior elfyness, but loses others. Tainted by death and spiteful towards the living, they shift from the standard elven tactics of Bowl over Blood to a somewhat more aggressive playstyle.

The linemen are just Skeletons with an extra point of MA. I felt that was most appropriate for an undead elf lineman. I'd like for them to have a better/more creative name than "Lineman" but it seems weird to call them Skeletons when they aren't the same as the other ones, and "Skeletal Elf" just feels a bit off to me for some reason. I also want them to be more expensive than other undead linemen, because elf.

The Wood Wraiths are there because I wanted a bit more S access and a little durability without adding more Bonedancers. They're sort of modeled after Flesh Golems, but faster and more fragile. Thematically I imagine them as spiteful elven spirits who've merged with a plant spirit, or something like that, they're tough but not held together by the most stable of forces. They're the least elfy piece on the team, but have a bit in common with Treemen. (Originally, I had them as a Big Guy instead of a positional, and they much more resembled the tree. Ultimately I like this better.)

The Runners are pretty basic. Just a regenerating elf with sprint. The idea is that in life they were maybe a Catcher, so they've lost some of their speed and ball handling talent. I want a better name for these guys as well. I've considered calling them Wraiths, but I already have the Wood Wraiths, and I feel like a player called Wraith should have Foul Appearance (to represent being semi-incorporeal.)

The Bonedancers (not sure if should be Bone Dancers) should be obvious, they're dead Wardancers. Lost a bit of their speed, and most of their agility. But in death they've become a bit more focused on other aspects of athleticism (ie, swapping A for S access) to make up for that. I'm a bit worried about the starting blodge, but I think it should be alright since they can't do all the bs actual wardancers can do. I feel like they ought to be around the same power level as Amazon Blitzers, bit faster but not as agile.

The Revenants are particularly spiteful (even more than the rest of the team!) elven spirits who've returned to life intent on exacting vengeance against all living beings. Their skillset is designed to make them a potential threat to any piece, Dauntless means they can get good blocks no matter your ST, and Stab means they can skip right past that blodge.

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think.

[Bakunin]

Great looking team.

The Wood Wraiths does not seem to get a (10k) discount for Decay, they could be 70k

But all those positionals are very expense (like DE), so I would remove Thick Skull from the linemen and make them 40k to get cheaper linefodder, and more room for the good positionals in an low TV roster.

[Shushnik]

Ag2 Av7. What a nightmare. A ton of hit and no follow type play, because you can't dodge and you can't take a hit. Thick skull isn't enough to make up that failing.

An interesting idea, but lacking both mobility, toughness, or any talent for bash is probably not going to total up to a decent team. Perhaps if you had four runners it might be possible, but as it is it's nothing but squishy undead.

[adhansa]

On intuition I would suggest remove the Bone Dancers, Up the WW and Runners to 4 and replace dauntless with block or leap on the Revenants. Call the linemen Skelfs. Really nice idea, ithink some more thought ahould be given to how a USP compared to Undead and Necro is best accomplished. I also fear that this team might run into some economy problems with so much fragile and expensive players.

[MalicWanderer]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

The linemen being a tad expensive is intentional, I want them to be more expensive than other undead linemen (because elf) but less than other elf linemen (because undead.) So 50k is pretty much the spot to be. The wood wraiths being a tad expensive was also intentional, for the same reasons essentially. A 70k positional on an elf team felt kind of low. That said, I'm not totally opposed to either just dropping the price or trying to give them something else to make the extra 10k more worthwhile. Ideally I'd like to see how they work out in actual play.

Not being able to start with all the positionals (and as many rerolls as you want) is a standard problem for elf teams. And many other teams, including lizards and necro. So I don't think that's really an issue.

Finding the right balance between high and low AG is probably going to be the trickiest part to making this roster work. Too much high and the low isn't a big deal, too much low and the high isn't good enough. I didn't make the runners 0-4 to begin with for fear of the former, and also because I kind of wanted a full positional team to still have 3 linemen on the pitch, but again I'd be happy to change that if needed, especially if I managed to get some actual testing in. It's not like they'd be the only team who can field less than 3 linos after all.

As for the AV 7 AG 2 combo, it's only on two pieces. The linemen who are meant to be kind of not great (like the regular skeletons their modeled after) and the dancers, who have Blodge. Overall that should keep them around about as much as an Amazon Blitzer. They aren't as good at dodging away, true, but they are better than an unskilled AG 3 player if it comes to needing it. Most coaches don't dodge prolifically with AG 3 either, so ultimately I don't think it will have a huge effect on how often they end a turn basing an enemy piece.

I would suggest remove the Bone Dancers, Up the WW and Runners to 4 and replace dauntless with block on the Revenants. Call the linemen Skelfs.

I think that I have an idea where you're coming from, but I'm not positive on your reasoning. In particular, why remove the bone dancers? Because they're too good, or not good enough? Or something else? I'd prefer not to drop them, as I think they are a very strong fit for the theme, and they give the team a blitzing piece with S access. I also like dauntless on the Revenants, for the mentioned reason of giving them tools against both high ST and defensively skilled players. Of course, if you drop the dancers then you need to put block on someone, this team won't do super well with 0 starting block. I suppose the Revenants could have both Block and Dauntless, with a price increase.

Edit: Your post changed a bit between me reviewing it and submitting.
What is USP?

[adhansa]

Sorry for that, i often post a bit early then continue to edit when thinking about new ideas i am intrigues about. USP- unique selling point. Like Necro that has the Werewolf. This team feels very similar to Undead/Necro that also have some fast but mostly slow players, even if the linemen are faster i fear they will spend most time pinned by stronger pieces and that their MA 6 wont make them much different then skeletons and zombies. To me this team alos seem a bit more fragile wich makes it so much harder to play defence. So it would be good if it had a somewhat obvious strategy to it that differs a bit from how undead plays.
My problem with the Bone Dancer is i think it is hard to balance as it will start out very strong, but quickly become fragile and pinnable as MB/Tackle develops on other teams.

[MalicWanderer]

I think, after some reflection on the other elf rosters, I agree on the economy problem. I've put some thought into the USP issue as well. Ultimately I think their main selling point "Elf team with 4 S access." As compared to Undead/Necro specifically, I would probably say "AG 4 and no regen-less ghouls." With these in mind, I've adjusted the roster a bit:

Code: Select all

Qty Title           Cost    MA  ST  AG  AV  Skills                        Normal Double
16  Linemen         50,000  6   3   2   7   Regeneration, Thick Skull       G     ASP
2   Wood Wraiths    80,000  5   3   2   8   Decay, Regeneration,            GS    AP
                                            Stand Firm, Thick Skull
4   Runners         90,000  7   3   4   7   Regeneration                    GA    SP
2   Bonedancers     100,000 7   3   2   7   Dodge, Regeneration, Side Step  GS    AP
2   Revenants       120,000 6   3   4   7   Block, Dauntless, Regeneration, GA    SP
                                            Stab

The runners lost sprint, while it was nice thematically it wasn't really doing a whole lot for them I think, and making them cheaper is good. I've also upped them to 0-4, to put more emphasis on the AG 4 aspect of the team. Still a bit worried that might be too much AG, but if that turns out to be the case they can be bumped back down. I'm also considering adding P access, as one more little thing they can do that Undead can't. But I'm concerned AG 4 passing game + S access might be too strong, even if you do have to earn all the pass-y catch-y skills.

Moved Block from the dancers to the Revenants, while replacing it with Side Step. Since Blodge costs extra, this keeps the dancers interesting while also making them cheaper. The Revenants are more expensive now, of course, but I think it balances out ok.

Overall, this makes them a bit less expensive than Dark Elfs, comparing full-kit to full-kit. Of course, dark elfs don't often run with the full 10 positionals, and they have more armor, but not a ton more, and these guys all have regen. If that turns out to not be quite enough for the economy problem, then I'd be ok adding a 10k discount to one of the players, I'm just not sure which would be best out of the runners, dancers, and revenants. Maybe even both the dancers and the revenants. In theory the wraiths are also an option, but since they're higher armor they shouldn't be as big a problem replacing. If they do turn out to be the problem, I think I'd rather just remove Decay. Price can stay the same because of rounding.

As for an obvious defensive strategy, I don't know. Off-hand I would say use your AG 4 to screen and hope AV 8 / Dodge hold up, while utilizing the revenants to harass. Depends somewhat on starting build, also. Once you've got a couple levels on the S access pieces (which could be slow going, admittedly) you should be fairly solid with one or two mighty blow and some Guard Stand Firm and/or Guard Blodge Side Step.

That may not be obvious enough, but it's what I've got without having had a chance to actually play them. Maybe they're just a harder team to use. Or, you know, maybe they just aren't very good.

Thanks again for the feedback, and for taking the team to read all of this.

Edit: As to the MB/Tackle issue, I don't think that's any different than any other piece that starts with dodge and AV 7. Which I think is all the pieces that start with dodge, except for the Human Catcher if you play BB2.

[Shushnik]

I hadn't scrolled down to see the revenants in my previous comment. They change my feelings significantly. I like it.