Advices on building a wood elf team

[Coach Alex]

Thanks for all of you advices, I'll try to explain how I see it personnaly ... arguing is usually a good way to discover good strategies.

The first thing I have to say is ... how the hell can a wood elf team have any chance of doing something good with less than 7 or 8 Fan Factor (in fact, how could ANY team?). Their players are the most expensive ones and the FF are DAMN SLOW to earn ... seriously, I don't get it.

Now, about putting catchers in my roster ... well, my line-elves are already superior catchers than most of the other teams' ones, especially in a strenght-oriented league as mine, so it's not that important to have them early on, they'll mostly be replacement for my dead/injuried/retired line-elves. Early on, they would mostly eat SPP that I would give to my line-elves while the other teams are too slow to make it more difficult. Obviously, they'll be helpful, but I'm able to wait some time. (and seriously, putting these expensive player on the LoS ... are you mad? )

Finally, about the further purchases, I've read all your suggestions and I've thought about it a little.

First : for some obvious reasons, apothecary.
Second : to ensure my control over the game in both offence and defence, second wardancer.
Third : depending of my actual needs, a treeman if it's playing too rough, a thrower if most of my line-elves earned their "pass" SPP and a catcher in any other case.
Fourth : third reroll without hesitation
Fifth and further : depending on my needs

Again, thanks for your advices, feel free to argue with my positions.

[plasmoid]

Hi Coach Alex,
I hope you don't mind a few replies:

Regarding FF:
Remember that a team with high FF will have spent less on players and rerolls.
This will make it harder to win.
The 10K for winning gets you the same kind of cash as +4FF.
So an FF4 team that wins earns the same as a FF8 team which loses.

Regarding catchers:
1. Wood elf linemen are good. But with just 2 team rerolls, they are prone to making mistakes. IMO, a few skill rerolls which can be used every turn greatly improves your chances of success.

2. Yep, at 90K catchers are expensive. But at 70K, linemen are almost as expensive.
And note that a lineman will eat dirt on a 2D block 55.6% of the time, while your catcher will eat dirt on a 3D(!) block only 43.1% of the time. Do that 3 times and you've got a significant difference.
(And lets not forget that teams with a big guy can often get a 3D block on a lineman anyway).

3. You say that your catchers would steal SPP from your linemen. I'm not sure I see the problem. At least you'll have some blodgers very quickly. And besides scoring, catchers are always useful for being moveable assists, which does not suck up any SPPs.

Ah well.
Best of luck
Martin

[plasmoid]

PS Alex,
one good reason for including at least one catcher.

With him, and some decent luck, you can one-turn-score right out of the box.
I'm not suggesting OTS'ing as your tactic, but many opponents will use slow cages against wood elfs, and attempt to score on the very last turn of the half. This often means that in one half, you'll get a one turn drive before halftime. If you can score on this drive, you are a lot closer to winning.
Cheers
Martin

[Gorbad]

You will need _all_ the FF you can have at TR 200+, preferably around 18, so starting high is really, really useful. (all IMHO, YMMV, IANABBC, TIMTOWTDI ofcourse)

Also the catchers are not there to be receivers per se, they are really useful on defense, and when starting with low RR they have those two all important reroll skills: Dodge and Catch.

I wouldn't recommend spending 20 or 40k to get throwers instead of liners, as they don't add much to a starting Wood Elf team, you will most likely never pass over a quick pass, if at all. If you need to pass, use a liner and get extra SPP for him, hand-offs are probably a better idea.

Score with liners when you can do so safely, while using catchers to hold the ball just over the LoS in the turn before.

That's my startup with Welves.

[Markus]

at least one catcher should be in the starting lineup. He is among the best defensive players in the game, just a bit weaker than gutterrunners and he will save rr when trying to get a lino spp from passing. just earn block and let the other guys score later. I started my last we team on fumbbl with
1 tree, 1wd, 1 catcher, 8 linos, ff 7 and a rr.
It turnes out quite nice as most opponents shun the tree and have to move in assists to get a 2d block against the linos beside the tree, it's easier to skill the tree as early on most opponents linos dont have block. the catcher helped earning the linos the first skill and the wd is a top blitzer and easily gets the ball out of the opponents hands. The thrower is not needed in the beginning, i usually buy him after i have 2 wd, 4 catchers and 4 rr.

[Coach Alex]

I agree the idea of getting a catcher on my starting roster is tempting but ... I would never do it at the cost of 2 FF (seriously, never) so it would mean losing a reroll ... which negates the advantage of "less risks of turnover" that provides me the catcher. Also, one of my main argument is that I want a stronger team before filling in these ST 2 elves.

Now ... for the FF. I know by experience that they are ESSENTIAL if I want to keep on purchasing players, which will be also essential in a wood elf team. I also know that they're quite hard to earn, virtually 2 chances out of 6 as soon as I'm at ten and higher ... so pretty much 1 per 3 games (if I always win) and I'll also lose 1 per 6 games ... I'd better start as high as I can ...

I'm still a little unsure about that catcher thing, but I'm sure about most of the rest (well, except for how to manage a team that shouldn't pass a certain rating)

[Warhammer]

Starting 10 lineelves and 1 WD as a starting lineup can and will win games. Sure, you need to be careful about your opponents, but it is a flexible way to start a team.

My philosophy is that you will lose players to casualties every game, count on it. Therefore, you need the money to win. Sure, having catchers or throwers will help you win more early, but what happens when they get hurt? You have to replace an expensive player, and doing so with low FF hurts, especially if the team is based upon them and you lose.

Example, I started a new league this weekend, we played amazons, we won 3-0. But, we had 3 casualties against, two on blocks, one on a dodge. One BH, one dead, and one SI later, I was glad they were all lineelves that were affected. Had the dead one been my WD or even a passer or a catcher it would have hurt even more because I would have had to have sacrificed a RR or FF to get him. Even with the win, I did not advance in fan factor or have much in winnings because I rolled 1s. Again, losing position players I would have been in much worse shape.

Also, while elves have some of the best positional players, the determining factor of an elven team is their lineelves. I have played WE for a good amount of time now, and whenever my lineelves have been skilled, we have been a great team. If they do not have a lot of skills, we have been an average team. Having a lot of position players early hurts you long term because they earn all the SPPs, leaving only CAS SPPs for the lineelves. Let me tell you, you don't want your lineelves scoring SPPs that way!

That said a lot depends on the league. If you are looking at only a few games, then go with the position heavy lineup, if you expect to get up to the 200 TR range, then go with the lineelf heavy lineup.

[wesleytj]

I have NEVER lost a game at TR 100 with the 10 line elf and 1 WD line up. This is out of about 10 tries, contuously running from vanilla 3rd ed to present LRB rules.

They can most definitely win games. Your line elves are roughly the equvalent of rookie human throwers for throwing, only faster, and 1 point shy of being st3 rookie human catchers for catching and dodging. and you have a whole team full of them. And in a TR100 environment, a Wardancer is a truly terrifying force. I've gotten 11spp with one in their first game without the MVP before...2td, 2cas, 1comp. At the time that was 2 skills. So I started my 2nd game with a WD with tackle and mightyblow.

[plasmoid]

OK,
admittedly the low FF approach was designed for use with the vault rules, where FF is less important and winning is more important (cashwize).
That being said, I do believe that it can work.

Just one more thing: People keep implying that the catchers will die so easily. But they won't. As described, they are harder to kill than linemen. Especially once the game gets going, and opponents can't afford to move in the 2 extra assists for a 3D block. That, and the fact that you won't be leaving catchers next to a block (due to dodge skill).

Good luck with your team Alex,
and by all means report back with the progress of your team.

Cheers
Martin

[wesleytj]

That, and the fact that you won't be leaving catchers next to a block (due to dodge skill).
Cheers
Martin

You shouldn't be leaving line elves next to a block either; generally, the last thing a wood elf coach should do every turn is dodge away all the line elves.

catchers are nice but you just can't afford them in a starting team, and all your "hard to knock down" points aside, they can be a liability on defense with only being st2.

additionally, they would naturally score a lot, which again stunts the development of the line elves.

[plasmoid]

Hi Wesley,

>You shouldn't be leaving line elves next to a block either; generally, the
>last thing a wood elf coach should do every turn is dodge away all the
>line elves.
Yep. But with just 2 team rerolls this won't always succeed.
Leaving any reroll-less dodger to fall over and suffer an armor roll, while his buddies will be facing blocks.

>they can be a liability on defense with only being st2.
True.
But on defense, something can be said for MA9 and dodge.
They may not be good at blocking themselves, but they can move to provide assists for their team mates, without requiring a team reroll based dodge to get there.

>additionally, they would naturally score a lot, which again stunts the
>development of the line elves.
Or, the smart coach could use them to facilitate the scoring of the linemen.

Cheers
Martin

[Warhammer]

Hi Wesley,

>You shouldn't be leaving line elves next to a block either; generally, the
>last thing a wood elf coach should do every turn is dodge away all the
>line elves.

Yep. But with just 2 team rerolls this won't always succeed.
Leaving any reroll-less dodger to fall over and suffer an armor roll, while his buddies will be facing blocks.

Yeah, but that is why you do it at the end of your turn. A lineelf getting hurt is not as severe as a catcher getting hurt.

>they can be a liability on defense with only being st2.
True.
But on defense, something can be said for MA9 and dodge.
They may not be good at blocking themselves, but they can move to provide assists for their team mates, without requiring a team reroll based dodge to get there.

Yeah, but you're still making the dodge roll. Additionally, if you are playing against dwarves, you are in for worse luck because of their tackle skill.

>additionally, they would naturally score a lot, which again stunts the
>development of the line elves.
Or, the smart coach could use them to facilitate the scoring of the linemen.

So you don't want to use the re-rolls on the dodges at 2+, but for catching at 2+ it is ok?

Catchers are a luxury for Woodies, they are not a requirement. Like Wesley, I have played with a 10 lineelf setup and a setup with catchers on a new WE team, and I have had far more long term success with the 10 lineelf starting lineup. In games 3 and 4, you might have some trouble with the 10 line elves, but by game 5 you are back in the saddle as many of your positional players have been acquired, and any CAS you have received are typically not a problem.

With more early positional players, my teams tend to not have as many skills because of the positional players sucking up the SPPs. Yes, you can try to score with your lineelves, but when the half is winding down, and you need a score to win, you don't want to take chances with fumbling the ball. You just punch it in, whereas when you have nothing but lineelves, you have no choice in the situation, BUT chances are you have a lineelf that already has the ball in a position to score.

[Coach Alex]

I'm glad to see so much people discussing about my problems, I'm not sure it's only because you're concerned about me, but I'll just pretend it's the case hehe. Anyway, just don't get too involved in this arguing, after all, the talent of a coach is more revelent to his winning than his starting roster ... they all got their advantages and weaknesses.

Anyway, I'm playing my first game tonight, I don't know yet against whom (I'd like to play against the High Elf one) but 6 players (including me) of my league will be present so I'll be fixed soon

Cya

[Coach Alex]

Played against High Elves, final result : 3-1.

The game sucked though, lot of skulls and lot of 1's on both side (but NEVER when dodging with a line-elf ) which made quite a crappy game on both sides. Anyway, I managed to turn the game at my advantage but I saddly haven't made a lot of SPP (out of 6 pass attempts, only one success ... dammit!).

[plasmoid]

Hi Warhammer,
I think we should just agree to disagree.

>Yeah, but that is why you do it at the end of your turn. A lineelf getting
>hurt is not as severe as a catcher getting hurt.
Yep, at the end of turn.
But the lineelfs will still have 1/6 to fall over, and catchers 1/36 - assuming you don't have rerolls to throw around.
And anyone that didn't get to move will be bashed.

Not to mention that it is an advantage that you don't have to wait until the end of turn to move those catchers. You can actually use them for tactical stuff like providing assists.

>Yeah, but you're still making the dodge roll. Additionally, if you are
>playing against dwarves, you are in for worse luck because of their
>tackle skill.
Yes - and at 35/36 success rate, I'll take the dodge.
Dwarves are dangerous for catchers.
If your league has a high % of dwarf teams, then the catcher route is admittedly very risky.

>So you don't want to use the re-rolls on the dodges at 2+, but for catching at 2+ it is ok?
If I have a reroll available, I can try to give it to a lineman.
If not, my catcher can score. Excellent options.
But if you 'dodge away' 3 linemen every turn, then I don't think you'll have the rerolls to keep using them for that.

Maybe we just have different experience with linemen and catchers.
I like my catchers to get 1st skill, for block or sidestep.
And I don't find that my linemen will always pop up in good positions and roll well.

Cheers
Martin

Ah well. Either way, the wood elf team is a good team. Chances are they'll do fine