St 5 wardancer help

juggler434 · Post by **juggler434** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 7:24 am

Don't bench him. Whats the point of having a great player if you don't use him. If you leave him out of a play so that he doesn't hog all your teams spp's, thats one thing, but I'd say give him the +1 AV and give him the play time a player that good deserves. If he dies, then at least he will be useful while he does it.

megelrov · Post by **megelrov** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:44 am

wow thats many different replys, dont really know what to make of it:)
the teams in my league are: Norse, dwarf, human, Goblin, De, Chaos Dwarft and another WE team.

its a long league. But yeah ppl are allready gunning for him big time, and i have a fight vs (2nd place in league)Dwarf next time with alot of upgrades, so maybe the +av would be smart.

Post by **DoubleSkulls** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:35 pm

Burnt brightly, but not long.... Mighty Blow for me.

whitetiger · Post by **whitetiger** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:57 pm

Give him the armor and use him when it is in your best interest to use him, otherwise, he will eat SPP and he's in danger of being a target every turn he's on the pitch. If you really want to have him around at the tourney at the end of your league, use him sparingly. Otherwise he is gonna get fouled and hurt or killed.

Cramy · Post by **Cramy** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:20 am

ST5 Wardancer, he must play every drive. He's too good not to. You don't want to score with him all the time as he'll hog all the SPPs. But he is an excellent support player when another one of your players has the ball. Punching holes, putting-up screens to avoid your ball carrier getting a TZ put on him, etc... Use him to help develop your other players. A ST5 Wardancer is dangerous. A WD with Strip Ball and Side Step is also dangerous. Catchers with a few skills get quite nasty as well.

This guy should really excel on defence though. Yes, he risks getting fouled if he falls. But guess what, any other Wardancer risks getting fouled if he falls.

If a Wardancer falls in my cage, he's getting the boot. Doesn't matter if he is ST3 or ST5.

Having said all this, I would consider +AV on any WD, if it's a perpetual league. If not, then Mighty Blow goes great with ST5. Follow that up with Frenzy or Tackle. If you don't like Mighty Blow, then Frenzy followed by Side Step would be nasty.

mattgslater · Post by **mattgslater** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:48 am

Cramy makes a lot of sense here, as usual.

Man, I love this game. So many opinions, all of them so reasonable.

+AV is great if you're expensive and getting knocked down. For a mere 10k TV (a much smaller deal than 10k cash), you can have a 33% reduction in your chance of injury outside of a foul (more like 28.6% vs. MB), and something less but maybe relevant in a foul.

MB is also great if you've got Block and +ST, and amazingly great for this guy, against whom there is no defense. It'll let you use him on low-percentage SPP efforts (blitzes) and improve the equation, as opposed to giving him a cut of the more rewarding TD/Comp plays, so he can avoid hogging SPP without sacrificing his progression.

MA9 isn't really going to give you a 1TS with this guy (an MA increase on a Catcher would, but you don't really want to dedicate your last three improvements with a ST5 Wardancer to it) But it is going to give offenses fits, because you can go to just about anywhere from just about anywhere. Move like a Gutter Runner, sting like a Troll.

Those will be the most popular three, but you could have a great deal of fun with some less optimal skill (I think I like Multiple Block best... esp. after he gets to 51 and gets Side Step). If you're better than your league and want to have a good time, take something like that. Any Elf likes Nerves of Steel: it's just a great skill when you've got a high AG and MA. Or maybe Juggernaut, so you can follow it with Strip Ball or Frenzy at 51. Or Grab, so then you can get Side Step at 51 and play all sorts of stupid Tackle Zone games with your opposition. Nah. That's fun with an Orc Blitzer, though, because you don't mind hanging out in a TZ and trading blocks, but it would be kind of scary trying to do that with this guy. Not that I'm recommending any of those, but they all sound like a good time, and if you're running over everybody anyway, do you really need an optimal selection?

Or you could just scrap it all and grab Side Step. If you want to make a durability argument, Side Step has the best argument there is going for it. But that has the same problem as +AV: hedges are good sometimes (esp. when they're hedges against things you can't control), but you should stop and think very hard every time you find yourself betting against yourself. Other G/A skills (Strip Ball, Frenzy, Tackle) look tasty, but not good enough to ignore doubles or +MA over.

Post by **DoubleSkulls** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:04 am

mattgslater wrote:(I think I like Multiple Block best... esp. after he gets to 51 and gets Side Step)

Matt - you've got a sick sick mind.

whitetiger · Post by **whitetiger** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:47 pm

I think I'd use this guy to clear the field for your catchers. Have him leap the line and take out thier backfield. Of course, with 5 ST, he could just crash through, and that might be a saver thing for him to do anyway.

mattgslater · Post by **mattgslater** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:09 pm

If you give him Mighty Blow, he'll make a great Catcher-hunter, as he gets 3d on a ST2 player straight-up. Give him Tackle or Frenzy at 51, and he's comin' down on those poor Gutter Runners with a fury!

Jural · Post by **Jural** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 5:16 pm

mattgslater wrote:If you give him Mighty Blow, he'll make a great Catcher-hunter, as he gets 3d on a ST2 player straight-up. Give him Tackle or Frenzy at 51, and he's comin' down on those poor Gutter Runners with a fury!

Why does a Wood Elf team need to gear up so heavily to kill other team's catchers? I think the Wood Elves already excel at that part of the game (scoring, standing toe to toe with speedy teams.) It's the bashy teams he is likely to have problems with.

Mighty Blow helps there for pitch clearing, as does +AV (every turn this player is not stunned you have options that otherwise simply don't exist... and Yes, this player will be knocked down at times, even with Strength 5...)

mattgslater · Post by **mattgslater** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 6:14 pm

Against any opponent with Wood Elves, the objective is always the same. Stop the score/break the cage, and then get into the end zone as fast as possible. If you protect this guy from defensive setup and don't leave him in TZs, he'll almost never get blocked or blitzed or anything, so long as you turn the game over every other turn, no matter what. This mode of thinking will also benefit you tremendously when it comes to earning SPP and improving your team, which in turn makes those AV7 linos more durable (Block, Dodge, Side Step, Wrestle, etc) in a big cycle of wonderfulness that you can only tap into if you're scoring 3-5 times per game.

If you can hit hard and surgically, and still score every other turn, that's all the protection you need. If you take a bunch of cas on other players, however, that's a problem for this Wardancer unless your opponent can't muster or can't use a numerical advantage, because the smaller your spread the harder it is to protect a guy on kickoff. So you need to pull even/ahead in the casualty war most of the time against speed teams, and against bash teams you need to wear down their ball-getters to pull the bruisers off your men and into protect mode: you don't need even cas balance there, but you do need not to get creamed and to hit one or more key guys.

I guess what I'm saying in a nutshell is that when you have low AV and live by turning over the game, Mighty Blow saves lives vs. bash teams by upping the ante on ball-coverage, either forcing suboptimal ball strategy or pushing the opponent to cede the game and go for blood, letting you reset over and over and ironically cutting into the body count. Mighty Blow also saves lives (and games) against speed teams by shifting the luck factor in the cas battle in your favor and reducing the odds of ending up outnumbered. +AV does the latter part too, but it doesn't give you any SPP and doesn't really change the way you can play with him (if it makes you sweat less, that's not so much a good thing -- The BB match goes usually to the wary, regardless of AV).

whitetiger · Post by **whitetiger** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:17 pm

I think what Matt is saying, in part, is: Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out.

But beside that, I still think you should use him judisiously. Make sure that when he's on the pitch he's protected from the other team's big guy. If you don't have a tree to bash on the other team's big guy, now would be the time to invest in that. Make sure you know at all times where their dauntless players are. Use your guy to set up other players on your team to go up in SPP. That'll make this guy less of a target by spreading the abilities around. They can't concetrate on this WD if you've got a catcher that's just as good. And score, score, score.

stormmaster1 · Post by **stormmaster1** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:26 am

taking out opposition's key players will help protect the team too.
I'd go mighty blow. Stars should have mighty blow. He's ST5. He should hit hard. People should be scared of him. and he should pick a skill which will improve him as a player, whereas increasing AV won't make enough of a difference imo.

whitetiger · Post by **whitetiger** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 7:16 am

stormmaster1 wrote:taking out opposition's key players will help protect the team too.
I'd go mighty blow. Stars should have mighty blow. He's ST5. He should hit hard. People should be scared of him. and he should pick a skill which will improve him as a player, whereas increasing AV won't make enough of a difference imo.

The more I think about it, the more I agree. Give the guy Mighty Blow. It'll help to tear down the opposition and it'll move him closer to his next skill roll. (at which time you can roll an 11 and really drive your opponants nuts.)

Use him wisely, Grasshopper, and he can win tournements for you.

fen · Post by **fen** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:27 am

I've said it before many times and I've always been right. So I'm going to drop 'The Curse of fen™' onto this Wardancer as well. He'll die at an inappropriate and inconvenient moment sometime soon if you don't take the +AV.