Dwarfes vs. Woddelfes

[habasta]

Its my first season playing with dwarfes. I made a few training games.
Now my first league match is against woodies.

He is playing with

1 Wardancer
1 Thrower
1 Catcher
8 Linos

2RR
4FF

My dwarfes:

1 Trollslayer
2 Blitzer
2 Runner
6 Longbeards

3 RR
3 FF
20.000 GP rest.

Now i have no speciall tactics for dwarfes. I played highelfes befor a now trying something completle different.
First i want to block out the skilled player of the woodies, catcher and wardancer if its possible.
Is it better to kick or to recieve?
And which skills for the players how getting up?

[Mootaz]

As a dwarf I would let the opponent begin, escpecially if he's playing elves. The reason is the following: KO recovery rolls. As a dwarf you win by removing opponent players, mostly due to KOs.
So denying the opponent KO recovery rolls is key.

If you begin it will normally go like this.
You grind out 8 turns and send players to KO. After your touchdown the opponent can recover from KOs, plays 1 turn and again recovers from KOs as the half ends. Then he makes a 2-turn-TD and again recovers from KOs. Then you grind till turn 8.
KO recovery at turn 7, 8 and 2 (second half)

If he begins it normally goes like this:
He scores 2-turn-TD and recovers from KO (but you only had 1 turn to beat him up, there shouldn't be many KOs). Then you grind till turn 8 and he recovers from KOs at halftime.
Then you grind till turn 8 again and he recovers from KOs at his turn 8 second half.
KO recovery at turn 2, 8 and 8 (second half)

If you let him start, he only has 1 "real" chance for KO recovery as the other 2 are either too early (you only had 1 turn so far) or too late (he only has 1 turn left).

So let him begin if possible.

[MattShepherd]

You've got the armour advantage, which means you have the longevity advantage.

You seem pretty new to Blood Bowl, and I don't want to state the obvious, but just in case you're sort of new to the game:

PUT HIS PLAYERS IN YOUR TACKLE ZONES AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE.

The thing about elves is, they can't take the hits. And the dwarves were MADE to hit. So if you exert tackle zones on them, they have to dodge out, and that's when you pray to the great anti-Elf god OATOA:

ONE AND THEN ONE AGAIN.

With AV7 and no block (except the WD), his players will snap like delicious crab legs under the onslaught of your dwarves, as long as you keep exerting tackle zones on as many players as possible.

Don't waste time focusing on the wardancer at first, it's too fast and too agile, especially with Leap. Work on getting some of the other elves off the pitch... once he has fewer players, you'll have more "spare" players to focus on the wardancer with.

Tackle zones. Tackle zones! TACKLE ZONES! Make him dodge, and inevitably he'll start slipping up. Then the beatings begin.

[voyagers_uk]

what he said, only hit them more often

[TuernRedvenom]

As a dwarf I would let the opponent begin, escpecially if he's playing elves. The reason is the following: KO recovery rolls. As a dwarf you win by removing opponent players, mostly due to KOs.
So denying the opponent KO recovery rolls is key.

If you begin it will normally go like this.
You grind out 8 turns and send players to KO. After your touchdown the opponent can recover from KOs, plays 1 turn and again recovers from KOs as the half ends. Then he makes a 2-turn-TD and again recovers from KOs. Then you grind till turn 8.
KO recovery at turn 7, 8 and 2 (second half)

If he begins it normally goes like this:
He scores 2-turn-TD and recovers from KO (but you only had 1 turn to beat him up, there shouldn't be many KOs). Then you grind till turn 8 and he recovers from KOs at halftime.
Then you grind till turn 8 again and he recovers from KOs at his turn 8 second half.
KO recovery at turn 2, 8 and 8 (second half)

If you let him start, he only has 1 "real" chance for KO recovery as the other 2 are either too early (you only had 1 turn so far) or too late (he only has 1 turn left).

So let him begin if possible.

I fully agree with Mootaz (actually his argumentations sound very familiar to me ), another thing to consider is that elves will easily score vs dwarves even when they have only a few players left but they will have a very hard time defending vs bashy teams when they are down in numbers, so you might as well let him have the offensive with his full squad, he'll probably score anyway (which is fine).

[Mootaz]

I fully agree with Mootaz (actually his argumentations sound very familiar to me ), another thing to consider is that elves will easily score vs dwarves even when they have only a few players left but they will have a very hard time defending vs bashy teams when they are down in numbers, so you might as well let him have the offensive with his full squad, he'll probably score anyway (which is fine).

Might be that I learned it here on TBB

[Fronko]

Maybe you like some advice from the opposite side: Being a woodelf coach, I usually try to stay away from them beardy half-sized ill-mannered stunties.

Which in turn only confirms, what the others said. Move your players in contact with them. Unless they can get a two-dice roll against your player they will rather dodge than block you (wardancer being the exception to that, of course). Make sure you cover the dodge players with longbeards, so hes has to use a team reroll when rolling a one. This will strip him of his precious rerolls rather early and after that he cant really pull of any daring plays any more. Also, hit the linemen first, to get a quick numbers advantage. Without block or dodge, they will fall easily, even on one-die blocks and their armor of 7 means you quickly can remove a few of them, even if its "only" an knockout. Combine that with what Mootaz said and you should have a good chance at winning.

Make sure you dont spread out too much though, thanks to their superior movement you might quickly find yourself in a disadvantageous situation that you cant recover from. Dont let them play the clock on you!!! You will need all the time you can get to score.

Oh - one additional piece of advice: If you still can, transfer the 20k you have left over into 2 more Fan Factor. That is worth more than the 20 k in the bank. You will probably not suffer any serious casualties against the wood elves, so there is no need to have an initial money bonus for your apo (if that is the reason, why you kept the money).

[SolomonKane]

I just wanted to add that, when you set up for defense, leave no holes. Force him to blitz your players aside in order to create any sort of dodging lanes. A pretty standard setup is to put your three LOS players shoulder-to-shoulder in the center of the line, and spread out your remaining 8 players so that his best option to create a running lane is through the center of the pitch, after pushing/knocking down your LOS players. If you can get him to run in the middle more of your players can stay involved in the action, because your overall speed is low.

Here's an idea of the setup I'm talking about (see the part about Defense Against an Agility Team): http://www.midgardbb.com/Tactics/defence.html

[Fronko]

As for progress on your dwarves:

The first three longbeards to get a skill should IMHO be guard. After that alternate guard and mighty blow on the beards.

Blitzers should be tackle, guard or mighty blow, as you see fit.

Slayer definitely mighty blow, together with his frenzy and dauntless he can take down stronger players more easily and MB makes sure they stay down.

Make one of the runners a thrower, with accurate and pass, the other should get block and probably tackle too.

Stat increases:
AG: They are always a good asset for any position, maybe except the longbeards. On runners and blitzers it makes for good receivers (or even better throwers), the slayers can use it to dodge away from someone, if they need to blitz someone else. Longbeards is a toss-up. As you only have three distinct ball carriers, a few losses can mean you have trouble picking up/ carrying the ball. Having an additional AG 3 player can help, though he is veeery slow.

MA: Good for blitzers and runners, as it imprves your td-making range. Slayers and beards should rather take a skill instead. If its a double, take that instead of the MA!

ST: No question, any player MUST take a strength upgrade, everything else would be stupid.

Doubles:
Your designated thrower should pick Strong Arm on a double. Just makes him that much better at hurling the thing.
The other runner could well benefit from dodge, as well as from guard or sidestep. Makes running along the sidelines much easier.
Slayers can benefit from dodge as well, though it is rather for the effect that they dont get smacked down as often. If you get an AG upgrade, though, they can even try dodging! Other slayer doubles include Standfirm (if you push an opponent off the pitch, due to your frenyz, they cant return the favor. Preferred over doge, IMHO.
Blitzers: On doubles, they can either take standfirm or catch, if you feel like it. Makes handoffs that much more easy!

Doubles on a longbeard should almost always be stand firm. No one moves a longbeard!

[habasta]

It was a draw 1:1 with 1:0 CAS for me. The dices were not my friends in this game. He scored in his 5 th turn and i need a 9th turn to score, damned wardancer. And in second half i scored in turn 8, dwarfes tactic. But only one cas for me, and only 3 in the k.o. box. This leaping wardancer tryed always to break my cage.
I get 70.000 gp and thinking about another longbeard or an apo. But we have only 7 games in our league and then the playoffs, so i´m thinking more about the longbeard.

[Redeemer31]

Everytime I play my friend's Wood Elves, I seem to pull off a kill.

First was one of his linemen and the second was his only Wardancer.

Of course we have only played twice but I'm hoping that it's a streak that will continue.

You may want to get an apothecary especially since you get to see the result of the casualty before deciding whether or not to use your apo. You'll probably only use the extra Longbeard to replaced KO'd players as the Apo would be used on players that were casualties. And since Dwarves have Thick Skulls, hopefully you'll never need to use an extra Longbeard. Of course if you're like me, you'll fail every single Thick Skull roll...

[stormmaster1]

apo is so useful for every team. I started a dwarf team on fumbbl and had a very poor start with injuries. In my first 3 games i had only 3 KOs, but 1 BH and 3 deaths. 2 dead were runners. I was unlucky but it is very hard to win with dwarfs if you get poor luck on injuries and are 1-2 men down. The cas i recieved were mainly due to non-bashy teams as well. So always get an apo before a 12th man.

[Fronko]

Well, with AV 9 across (almost) the entire board, the apo doesnt seem that attractive. But dont forget , that you only have 4 players that are able the carry the ball. Lose one of them to an injury and your options are severely limited. So, to me the apoth is always the first purchase, no matter what team.

[Aksho]

...apo always the first choice never heard an undead coach saying that ...

mfg Bernd