Wood Elf tactics, specifically DEFENCE!!

[dwarfrunner]

I am in a league, and am playing Wood Elves in a mostly bashy league. I am fairly inexperienced with Elves, and am having trouble defending against teams. Is there a LRB5 tactics article to how to play wood elves effectively. I had seen one about LRB4, bu can't find it again. I know skills play a big part, which I am working on, but my team is still fairly inexperienced.

[fen]

"Wood Elves!"
*prods westleytj*

[m0nty_au]

I'm qualified to speak on that, seeing as I coach a woodie team called Bhaggy Greens in the faction division on FUMBBL and have three gold medals to show for it.

Here's my rock-solid woodie defence strategy, which I use for every game.

FORMATION
Obviously the tree goes in the middle, with two cannon fodder line elves on either side. Then on each side, you have two sets of two players set back two spaces from the LOS, next to each other, so the third row back from the LOS looks like:

_CO_|IS_____SI|_OC_

The letters stand for: Corner, Outside Linebacker, Inside Linebacker and Safety. The main reason for this formation is that wood elves on defence are all about quick turnovers, so putting them as close to the LOS as possible maximises your chance of getting to the ballcarrier.

DEVELOPMENT
Corners should ideally be wardancers, but the essential skill for the corners is Side Step. This is essential not only to prevent crowd pushes, but also to prevent holes on the outside of the defensive wall. Under LRB5, of course, Grab comes into play to counter Side Step but Stand Firm is now also an option on doubles, even though Stand Firm won't prevent a hole on the outside if the corner gets blitzed successfully (remember that Side Step still works against Juggernaut, but Stand Firm doesn't). In a perfect world you could even skill up a line elf to take on this position with only Block and Side Step, thus freeing up a wardancer to move to safety since corners get hit a lot.

Outside linebackers ideally would have Guard to help the corner, but if not then Tackle and either Diving Tackle or Shadowing are lovely. Catchers are best suited to this position because they rarely get hit, and usually get a wide space on a Blitz kickoff result to rush the drop of the ball (helped by the wardancer at corner clearing away the riff-raff).

Inside linebackers also use Guard very effectively, as well as the other three aforementioned, but you would also like one of them to have Kick. This is a lineelf or catcher position.

Safeties with Side Step are also nice, but +ST line elves are outstanding in this position, so put any you have here. Tackle is also important.

With this formation you are trying to force your opponent to go through the middle, since your speed and dodging ability means you can get far more pieces to the action on your next turn than s/he has. Usual responses to this formation that I encounter are either caging behind their LOS - which is a win for you because you can then bring either or both wardancers from the corners to do what they do best - or blitzing a safety and sending through a stream of catchers through the hole towards the center of your backfield.

Of course, this formation is most effective when you have 11 players on the field. You can get away with 10 or 9 by removing one or two safeties and giving up the centre of the field, but beyond that it starts looking too thin. At 8 you could try keeping the corner and ILB and putting a single deep safety 7 or 8 squares behind the LOS (ideally a wardancer), but teams with any speed at all will still be able to cage most effectively in your half of the field. At 7, you're best off putting all four non-LOS players back as deep safeties. At 6 or lower... and I've been there many times... start praying for a Blitz!

[wesleytj]

i'd agree with a lot of monty said, but not all of it. i, for one, would certainly not put wardancers on the corners. they need to be free to roam and blitz and what not, not stuck holding the edges. you can develop line elves to do that job just fine, with skills like block, dodge, sidestep, diving tackle, and so on.

for more information, consult my strategy guide. i still haven't updated it for lrb5.0 yet, but 90% of it is still pretty accurate, and i've gotten very positive feedback on it over the years.

i hope to get around to updating it to 5.0 this spring or so.

[m0nty_au]

Oh, and one other thing: where possible, taunt your opponent into ganging up on your treeman. I don't know why, but I see so many noob coaches attack the tree and almost ignore the ball. Maybe it's a macho thing, the big phallic object just waiting for a manly lumberjack to pound it into submission.

There is nothing sweeter for a woodie coach to see four or five opposing players gathered around a tree seeing if they can knock it over. That means whoever has the ball is likely open to be blitzed.

[Cramy]

Monty touched on it, but in this league, a tree may be worth-it. Use him to soak-up damage on the LoS. And he makes it very inconvenient for strength teams to cage-up and do the slow grind. They have to pick a side of the field, and can't easily move the cage laterally. This will help with containing the cage. If the cage starts on one side of the tree, it won't slide to the other side very easily.

A skill to consider for the tree is break tackle. What I like to do against trees is put a lino on him, and hope that he survives until the tree takes root. Then wait to get hit with a push back and then just move away. That's if my lino is still around by that time. With Break Tackle, you can move the tree to the cage to smash it, before he takes root obviously . Once in the cage, the slow strength team will have to deal with him, stalling the cage. If you stall the cage for long enough, your opponent may not be able to score. Then he is in trouble.

Never tried this with LRB5. So I'm now wondering how good Grab would be for a second skill. If you can get in contact with the cage, you can start to hit players and get them out of the cage using grab, which could leave huge holes for the WDs to exploit ...

[Cramy]

Oh, and one other thing: where possible, taunt your opponent into ganging up on your treeman. I don't know why, but I see so many noob coaches attack the tree and almost ignore the ball. Maybe it's a macho thing, the big phallic object just waiting for a manly lumberjack to pound it into submission.

There is nothing sweeter for a woodie coach to see four or five opposing players gathered around a tree seeing if they can knock it over. That means whoever has the ball is likely open to be blitzed.

Oh yes, seen that many, many times. This is great. Once had a CD coach gang-up all of his Dwarves on my trees when I played halflings. Was great having 9 halfings ganging-up on 3 poor Hobgobbos. Found it great that all the tackle players were trying to bring-down the tree instead of massacering my Flings.

But yes, if your opponent decides that he absolutely needs to take that tree down, then you are blessed with the opportunity for an easy steal of the ball and score, or maybe doing some massacering of your own.

[falconeyed]

Wrestle and Fend are both ideal for stopping cages and further exploiting your speed advantage over all bash teams. I also would absolutely not put wardancers on the corners. They're your best players and must not be unduly exposed to attack. If I was playing a wood elf team with wardancers on the corners, I would put my tackler on that side, set my cage to go at one of the dancer, then attack the dancer with the tackler, move the cage up to the fallen dancer and then foul it. Sidestep will somewhat negate this, but you really shouldn't be exposing wardancers unnecessarily given their AV7.

You should basically be dodging back one turn every turn to slow the cage (unless you have wrestle and fend already, in which case your attacker's blocks are acting as your dodges) and looking for targets of opportunity to blitz. You need to stall until about turn 5 or 6, hopefully not giving up much more than about four or five spaces of ground into your half. Once you're there, most bash teams will begin to panic and eventually make a break for it. Once this happens (or an early turnover exposes his cage), then go all out for the ball.

Also, you should be trailing a guy five or so paces behind the main cage, so that you've got somebody to get the ball to once you've popped the ball from the cage.

Also, if the team doesn't have a lot of guard yet, then on about turn 5 or 6, run some of your lineelves up to cover the front two guys in his cage and then leap / blitz the ball carrier and hope for a pow or a push (if you've got strip ball).

[stormmaster1]

The main thing is patience and don't get drawn into a fight. If you go for the ball early and it's protected then your wardancer will be leaping in (this often fails and he gets kod by the fall or killed by the foul) and you have to bring your linos up to take away assists. After the turnover they will be turned into elfburgers by most teams. You have to bide your time and retreat, only blitzing or taking easy blocks that won't leave you exposed.

[Duke Jan]

Wrestle and Fend are both ideal for stopping cages

Fend is nice on a few players, 2 at most, in front of the cage, but it is mainly useful once the cage is on your half, which you hope to prevent in the first place. So the start would be something along the lines of monty's suggestion. Wrestle is something I'd put on ST2 players only, on ST3 players I'd prefer block because a prone player is still a hole in your, probably sparse, defense.

Another thing is to pushback your opponent towards the middle: towards the tree. Feed the trees is my motto, should give your tree 2 SPP on a regular basis. Break tackle? No, your tree is not for moving. Go for multi-block or guard instead. Don't even let your opponent tempt you to move your tree too far from the middle of the pitch.

I can see monty's tactic work, but it all depends on how you build your team. The most important part is to get the ball. Force as many pick-up attempts on your opponent as possible. I wouldn't put the dancers on the sides, not to keep them safe, but to target the ball carrier. War dancers are expensive, but expendable. In LRB 5 it is probably a good idea to start piling up cash and abusing journeymen for the LOS. Always have 120k ready for critical replacements and buy positionals in pairs.

[DamianTheLost]

starting a new WE team. Wesley where do I find ur strategy guide???

[Brokje]

http://mama.indstate.edu/users/python/bbowl/welves

Good luck!
M

[PubBowler]

Never tried this with LRB5. So I'm now wondering how good Grab would be for a second skill. If you can get in contact with the cage, you can start to hit players and get them out of the cage using grab, which could leave huge holes for the WDs to exploit ...

Grab is very useful for trees. They're are going to Take Root eventually but this means you can keep that guy you're hitting inside your tackle zone and ready to get socked next time.

[JumpingElf]

I'm playing woodies now for years in our league and most of my friends prefer to play bashy teams (Dwarf ... I really hate them , Orcs, Undead or Khemri).

For the LoS I always try to get a tree and put at first Guard and then Multible Block on him. Next to him two Linos with Blodge. So the Linos will block with ST 4! Nice to have! Both side will be guarded with Blodge Linos too (third skill will be "Wrestle")... you see you need only two skills for every player! To get these SSPs try to make TDs with your Linos in your first games. So it is better to start with as may Linos you can. Give your WDs Strip Ball and Tackle and try to hit your opponents without let your WDs stand alone. Put Shadowing and Pass Block on two Specialist for your second line and two Tackle guys with Shadowing to get players like Ghouls.

Defense for woodies is a bit like fencing. Stay away and try to find flaws in the offense. The offense can only blitz once a turn, but the defense too.

At last: Never try to beat the bashy teams up and don't foul as much as you can. Their AV is much to high to be really successful. Delay his game!

For me it works! I won the last three our league tournaments. The last two finals against hard bashing Undead.

[Omalley69]

@ "the macho vs the tree"

the downside of not cutting down the tree is, that its very strong, so its most likely to get the 2 dices...even against my ogre team
the tree is S 6 and ogre only 5, so with out guard, the tre has the upperhand...
so i allways stick with the "cut down that thing/opposing big guy" AQAP, and then raom the field for more ssp´s (cas+td)...