Starting Wood Elves

[Aliboon]

I'm really to be convinced that you need a Tree in a resurection tornie, I'm sure you'll get more use out of a lino and a RR, or 2 extra RRs and FF etc.

Matt's defence would work well against a finesse team who needed to score in 2 turns, but as drives go on, the tree is likely to root, or just be outmanouvered and become a bystander. He will be outmanouvered by any quick team, or will just be fed a cheap lino to tie him up for the slower ones, after the 1st turn or two in a drive he really won't do anything imo.

For me winning with woodies against bash teams is all about breaking the cage and scoring quickly, so strip ball is needed on 1 of the WDs and maybe wrestle on the other in case there is a lot of sure hands.

Against finesse teams you'll be at least as fast and as agile, so scoring won't be a problem and that extra reroll you can afford will let you make less mistakes than the opo.

[one_second_of_insanity]

I haven't played a game yet but that will be changing after the weekend, I am going to be getting at least one game a week in until the tourney and consider myself a fast learner and all the vets here are quite friendly. Fortunately for me the tourney isn't until May so I can get plenty of practice in, I thought I would ask early as I suspected this would be a steep learning curve.

[Cramy]

Yeah, that's the problem with the Tree. Against most teams, he is completely useless. Everybody will dodge away, then it's 10 Wood Elves (some of which are ST2) against 11 players. Don't like that. On offense, not much use against any team. He is only useful on defense against bashy teams. Then he's pretty good, but I wouldn't bother.

What would I buy in a TV120 tourney?

240 2 Wardancers
360 4 Catchers
350 5 Linemen
90 1 Thrower
150 3 Rerolls
10 1FF

The Thrower is not essential. He's a lineman with pass. His pass skill can be useful on defense when you extract the ball with the Wardancers. He's another guy who can go get the ball and get it to somebody else with a pass action. He is also useful if you need to score in two turns. Makes the run-pass-run-handoff-run routine a bit easier.

3 RRs means that you can reroll those blocks on the ball carrier. Remember that you need to extract the ball on defense. If your opponent has some guard and knows how to cage with them, it will be 2-dice he choses the result to extract the ball. And the leap at 3+ is always risky. Extra rerolls are always good for those plays.

Oh, and keep the rerolls for ball extraction mostly. Use them for ball handling if you run the risk of not scoring in your drive, but other than that you want to keep them for the leap and steal the ball play. No matter how tempting, there is rarely a case where you want to reroll a failed dodge.

[mattgslater]

I like Cramy's roster too. If you're worried about bash and don't like trees, maybe replace a Catcher and Thrower with two Linemen and an Apothecary.

I think the trick to any team lies in shrinking the field. The bash teams want to shrink it horizontally, and the agility teams want to shrink it vertically. If you can keep the ball in the opponent's half, your opponent has ZERO chance of recovering if you get it away. If a bashy team can hedge your players all into a bunch, your precious 70k linos are so much dead meat. The Tree helps a lot with both. If your opponent can cage up in your half on one side, then that's that many more one-square-per-turn plays he can opt for as he grinds his way down the field, and one less gamble he has to take to break out. That's why I like 'em. Others have correctly noted that if it doesn't work, the Tree tends to end up out of the play. This is true also: I guess it's a matter of temperament.

[Grogmir]

Zero reason to have an Apoc in Tourni play. Never ever hire one.

[Meradanis]

I have to take the cudgels for mattgslater, a Tree with Guard works great on a tourney. I've seen and played against such a combo once, it's been the final game (I've been on the first place when entering) of a 3 game tournament. Although my team has been a finesse team, I struggled big time agains the Tree and lost the game.

I'll explain why: I tried to ignore the tree, but he's still standing in the middle of the LOS, dividing the board into 2 parts. Normally, you have to defend 15 squares from one sideline to the other. With a Guard tree in the middle, it feels more like 2x 6 squares. With 11 Elves to field, that's 5 players to defend 6 squares on each side, which can be a real pain in the ass to play against.
But I have to admit that's pretty adanced stuff, you have to know the art of defence very well to make this work. If you don't, your opponent will managed an easy breakthrough, and you have an utterly useless tree.

Since the starter of this thread is a beginner, I would choose Cramys roster instead. Transform 1 Catcher into another Lino, and buy 1 CL + 1 AC, that's what I would play with.

Zero reason to have an Apoc in Tourni play. Never ever hire one.

That's not entirely true, if you have players ranging from 70k to 120k, the apo still if usefull under LRB5 rules. Remember, it's an auto heal if you use him on a badly hurt player, because you may always choose the better of the two results.

[PubBowler]

Zero reason to have an Apoc in Tourni play. Never ever hire one.

Disagree. Never regretted taking him in a TV110 Dwarf roster.

As mentioned by Meradanis, can be used as an auto heal but it's main strength is getting a skilled player back on the field.

In particular Dwarfs sides have expense reserves and few KOs to deal with.

[mattgslater]

An Apothecary is normally a marginal deal in tourney play, but two things scream out at me about this team being an exception:

1) You have WARDANCERS. An Apothecary keeps them in the game.

2) You have 1.2 M. At 1.1, maybe not, but at the opportunity cost of a 4th RRC it's not bad at all.

[one_second_of_insanity]

Ok guys I have been digesting everything that has been said and ws wondering if I could get any pointers in how to play defence with wood elves (I know that it will depend on whether or not I am facing a bashy/agile team). I know that Wood Elves are made for scoring so am not too concerned about offense (although I can see myself being shutdown by some more experienced coaches to begin with), so I am just looking at general ways in which people or ideas that I may be able to impliment.

Thanks in advance

PS My first game is on Monday, then I really will be hooked

[mattgslater]

With or without a Tree? It makes a huge difference, almost like two different teams.

[one_second_of_insanity]

I am leaning a lot more towards the tree, I can afford it

[frogbear]

I just played my 2nd game with a 100TV woodies team

here are the things I learnt quickly

The first game I took a treeman against Norse. They dodged away and the tree was useless. It was rooted and became useless again. I won 2-1 yet that was only due to a snow troll stuffing up wild animal turn after turn.

The second was against dark elves with no treeman. Very different game. I won 2-1 and almost made it 3 -1. So much better team. Your Wardancers are the key. get them into the action after your linemen have taken away any assists. They can get in anywhere.

On defence, for time wasting, 3 linemen on the front line. The rest about 5-6 squares back forming a line with tackle zones (this allows wardancers to close in fast if need be). Linemen get stomped. 1 turn gone. You pick up the linemen that got stomped and dodge back a square out of block zones. Now this will force the opponent to either waste turns or divide his force to break a line. Once this happens, sack the ball carrier who no longer has a wall directly in front of him with the wardancers.

On defence, where you want the ball back, those wardancers are awesome. Just think Jedi warriors and go sick.

In any event, a treeman is going to take up valuable points that could be better spent on a positional and another reroll. For the 100TV I had

2 x WD
1 x Thrower
8 x Linemen
2 x reroll

I think you should improve on that type of lineup. It gets TDs and gives a solid (if that is possible for woodies) lineup vs crunch. Then again, if your opponent rolls well, then it will not matter. But as long as you have WD, then you are still in the game. Keep them safe.

[fire olli]

I have been playing wood elves in our league and i must say that the treeman has been poo.

Every game it seems to take root in the first few turns of each drive or when you do block with it it rolls a double block and goes down anyway.

I am sure there is a place for a treeman and if you come up against a strong front line it can get a block or two in but other than that i would go for a team without one.

[mattgslater]

Every game it seems to take root in the first few turns of each drive or when you do block with it it rolls a double block and goes down anyway.

The latter effect has nothing to do with the model or its profile, except that like a minimum 8 more guys on your team it doesn't start with Block. The former effect (taking root in the first few turns) shouldn't matter TOO much as anti-skills go: as a Wood Elf coach, your only thought is always "score, reset the drive, unroot, roll for KOs." If a drive goes into its fourth turn for the receiving team, that's a bad sign.

Treemen are not good to start with at 1M. Building a WE team, you basically get to pick four from 0-2x 1 WD, 1 TM, 0-8 x 1 RR, 0-2x 2-3 Catchers/Throwers. You also get a single Catcher or Thrower if you like. WD is a better deal than Tree. Two WDs leaves you with either several positionals and 1RR or one positional and 2RR. Either is a better deal than a Tree.

At 1.2 M, all those cost issues go right out the window, and the Tree becomes a toughening mechanism rather than a guy in a straightjacket (after all, you can even buy an APO, a Tree and a reserve without touching your initial calculations, and you can trade your bonus Catcher/Thrower for a RR at the expense of the money you have left over in the deal). So you're doing the right thing.

[one_second_of_insanity]

What about the following TV1.2 roster (I just got the players pack for the tourney and we must purchase at least 1 FF)?

7 Line Elves
2 Wardancers
2 Catchers
1 Thrower
3 RR
2 FF
3 Cheerleaders

As we also can pick 4 normal skills that don't add to the teams cost as well I thought this may be a better roster. At the end of day 1 we get an additional draft but thoses stat/skill increases cannot be on any player that has already received one. Plus players can have 1 star player drafted to their team

From what I have heard the teams do sound more on the bashy side of things (orcs, vampires, chaos, norse) but skaven are very popular around here as well

Skills as follows:
Wardancer: strip ball
Catcher: leap
Line Elf: kick
Line Elf: ?