Cursed Dark Elf Team!

[Jural]

Two brief points-

Regarding re-rolls vs. blitzers, I make the following choice for Dark Elves:

1) If I am usually an underdog by 100k or more, I buy a blitzer. Rationale: I'll induce the re-roll if I think I'll need it.

2) Assuming I'm not always an underdog, I look around the league at my opponents, and especially my upcoming games if I am in a scheduled league. If the opponents are mainly bash, I take the re-roll. I need assets I can keep!

3) If I am not generally an underdog, and my opponents are not mostly bash, I grab the blitzer.

For my dark elves, I find 4 blitzers, 2 witch elves, 13 total players, and 3 re-rolls is where you need to get to ASAP.

[wesleytj]

My Witch Elf (Eva Blight) gained her third skill. I am not sure what to go with for her. She has block and tackle so far. I am leaning towards sidestep but other suggestions are very welcome.

Leap is a great witch elf skill. So is Dauntless. Not that there is anything wrong with Side Step.

I would take one of those 3 skills. You can use leap to set up crowd surfs that would otherwise be much tougher to pull off, as well as the standard Wardancer cage break thing (but be careful about making sure the possible 2nd block isn't too scary).

Dauntless has obvious applications...your witches are your wrecking balls - giving them Dauntless will make them a more of a menace to Chaos Warriors and Black Orcs, and the like.

[Catt]

Two brief points-

Regarding re-rolls vs. blitzers, I make the following choice for Dark Elves:

1) If I am usually an underdog by 100k or more, I buy a blitzer. Rationale: I'll induce the re-roll if I think I'll need it.

2) Assuming I'm not always an underdog, I look around the league at my opponents, and especially my upcoming games if I am in a scheduled league. If the opponents are mainly bash, I take the re-roll. I need assets I can keep!

3) If I am not generally an underdog, and my opponents are not mostly bash, I grab the blitzer.

For my dark elves, I find 4 blitzers, 2 witch elves, 13 total players, and 3 re-rolls is where you need to get to ASAP.

I've been thinking along similar lines.

I can generally avoid really unpleasent teams. There is one really developed bashy Chaos team who I can probably avoid completely. There are an array of new bashy teams but in general the league is fairly balanced. The Monarchs are pretty much mid-table in terms of team value.

I need to spread the skills out a bit and get my turn my two rooky blitzers into blodgers ASAP and extra re-roll I suppose basically enables me to take one extra 'risk' per half which might help in this regard.

I'm torn.

[Catt]

My Witch Elf (Eva Blight) gained her third skill. I am not sure what to go with for her. She has block and tackle so far. I am leaning towards sidestep but other suggestions are very welcome.

Leap is a great witch elf skill. So is Dauntless. Not that there is anything wrong with Side Step.

I would take one of those 3 skills. You can use leap to set up crowd surfs that would otherwise be much tougher to pull off, as well as the standard Wardancer cage break thing (but be careful about making sure the possible 2nd block isn't too scary).

Dauntless has obvious applications...your witches are your wrecking balls - giving them Dauntless will make them a more of a menace to Chaos Warriors and Black Orcs, and the like.

I had considered leap as I also play Slann I know that that skill can get you out of some major holes! (as well as kill you!)

A leaping Witch would work well with Ebenezeer Bastard my blodging, leaping, guarding, blitzer. He can leap in to give her a tactical assist. All this is great in theory but a lack of rerolls makes this a bit more risky then I'd like - especially with an AV7 player.

I had also thought about strip ball for her to make her great at freeing up the ball. Even if she doesn't knock the ball carrier down she'll likely knock it out of their hands then push them out the way and keep their tackle zones off the ball.

I hadn't considered dauntless actually. Its something to think about.

[wesleytj]

I think most Dark Elf teams should have at least one player with Dauntless - more if you have a league full of ST4 players like Saurus and Chaos Warriors and such. It just helps even things up a little - Dark Elves play a little rougher than the rest of the elf teams, and have no big guy, so Dauntless helps some with that.

[Cramy]

I think most Dark Elf teams should have at least one player with Dauntless - more if you have a league full of ST4 players like Saurus and Chaos Warriors and such. It just helps even things up a little - Dark Elves play a little rougher than the rest of the elf teams, and have no big guy, so Dauntless helps some with that.

Agreed for Dauntless, but not necessarily on the Witch. I personnally prefer Dauntless on the Blitzers.

A few tips from my experience with Dark Elves.

You want to get to 4 Blitzers, 2 Witches and at least 3 RRs as quickly as you can. In what order you get there depends on lots of things, as discussed earlier. For me, usually Blitzers first, then RRs, then Witches.

BTW, you do know that you can reroll your winnings if you win the game, right?

Dark Elves are the slowest Elves and the bashiest. You want to be as mobile as you can to be able to attack weak spots. Give dodge to every player that you can give it to (after kick on a lineman, as you already did). As with all Elves, never stay in TZs unless you have to. Dodge helps with that. So you will have protection skills (Dodge and Block/Wrestle), and Dodge helps to stay out of harms way. So your CAS against rate should go down a lot.

You want some Wrestle in there. I have used Wrestle on my Witches and I have to say that I really like it. Wrestle, Tackle, Leap, Strip Ball, makes for a nasty player to attack the ball carrier. You went with Block on the Witch, and that's fine. You can give Wrestle to linemen (after dodge).

On doubles on linemen, Guard. On doubles on Blitzers, Guard or Mighty Blow (depends on how much Guard you already have). On Witches, Mighty Blow.

With some Guard, Dodge, Block/Wrestle, Leap on key players, nobody in the opposition is ever safe.

On offence, run the ball, get guys in position, then run the ball in the endzone, or do a hand-off or quick pass to score. Keep a reroll or two for these plays in case they go bad, even though they should all be 2+ rolls.

But you want to keep the bulk of your rerolls for defence.

On defence, usually kick deep, then get two or three blodgers in his back field to try to get the ball before he cages up. If you have a Strip Ball / Wrestle player, then get him in the back field. If you can steal the ball before he cages up, then you may have won the game right there.

If the above failed, you can stall the opponent's cage. Setup your team two players deep, with two empty squares between each set of two players. That line should be one square away from the front of the cage. Usually 3 rows of two players is enough to stall the cage. Get blodgers or wreste/dodge players in front of the cage so that when they are blitzed they are likely to stay up. Side Step helps here too. If you kicked deep, then it probably took a few more turns for him to cage-up, so that helps too.

Always keep a player or two in position to run away with the ball if you manage to get it. If he tags them, then that's less players around the cage for you to worry about.

If you see that he won't make it to the endzone, you can just continue the above. If you want/need to score, then you need to attack the cage. If you stall him enough, he'll start to take risks to move the cage, which may provide you with openings to hit the ball carrier. If that doesn't happen, Tag the corners of the cage, leap in the cage (like a Wardancer) and hit the ball carrier. You want to pick a time where he'll be too busy trying to scramble to score before you score or time runs out to start to block the hell out of your players and foul them. Wrestle, Strip Ball, and Leap players excel here, and Tackle, Frenzy (if used right) are also quite useful.

When you do plan to hit the ball carrier, make sure that you have those one or two guys ready to score or run out of harms way once they have the ball, and that you have a player or two who haven't moved who can pick-up the lose ball. The point here is to do a very quick strike. Tag cage, sack ball carrier (or strip the ball), pick-up the ball and give it to a runway guy.

My problem is usually when playing against other Elf teams. No tips from me on that ...

Hope this rambling helps.

[Catt]

Hi Cramy,

Thanks, the rambling does help! I do tend to play the way you describe. I tend to punch a hole down one wing and run a loose cage up field with my leaping blitzer as part of it, with the runner as the ball carrier. If he does get sacked he can dump off to the leaping blitzer who can then score generally. Its a simple strategy which is more often effective then not against low aggression teams like Skaven, Human, Elves etc.

Yeah I know I can re-roll winnings - the re-roll was a 1! Grrrrr

I am kind of leaning towards buying a 4th blitzer now I've been thinking a bit.

My DEs are the only team in the league to have beaten my brother's Pro Elf team and I think that's because they matched for speed but I have more armour - and an assassin. I find playing against other elf teams more straightforward to be honest. Now my assassin has mutliple block his become even more dangeorus against AV7 teams.

My Dark elves are doing quite well really and have won five of their last seven matches, especially considering the number of setbacks they've had. I think this is because Elves in general can afford to loose players off the pitch more so than a lot of other teams because being AG4 everyone is good at throwing, dodging, picking up the ball etc.

I had considered wrestle on my Witch. Dauntless I think would be too much of a liability on a frenzying, AV7 person - certainly until I get more re-rolls anyway.

They may be playing again tomorrow night so I need to make these decisions soon.

[kizkiz]

So you want to avoid my chaos team eh?

[Catt]

So you want to avoid my chaos team eh?

I'd get 400K in inducements. But essentially you're right!

I'd take your Wood Elves to town though. Or maybe not...

[Digger Goreman]

Journeymen with 4 Ag.... Finding it terribly hard to locate a scritch, let alone scratch, of empathy/sympathy....

[Catt]

Journeymen with 4 Ag.... Finding it terribly hard to locate a scritch, let alone scratch, of empathy/sympathy....

Ha! Yeah, I guess of all teams Elves have it the best for journeymen with their AG4.

Its weird you should use the words scritch and scratch because Scritch Scratch is my Skaven teams star AG5 gutter runner!

[Digger Goreman]

Yeah, I was channeling abominations by accident....

[Catt]

The curse is lifted. I didn't suffer any casualities in the game I just played.

I played a bizarre game against our third placed team in our first season: Skaven. We were both unlucky but my opponent was probably more unlucky than I was. It was 1-0 to me but it could have been 3-3. It was very low scoring for a Dark Elf-Skaven encounter.

The assasin's multiple block was extremely good against Skaven - he got several people off the pitch with knockouts and stunned many people, including sacking the ball carrier on one occasion.

I had three skill ups and got lucky on all three:

- +1M or AV on a lineman (otherwise unskilled)
- Double on my Runner (dodge, NoS)
- +1 Strength on a rookie blitzer (but he has a niggling injury annoyingly)

Obviously I am taking the +1 Strength!

Should I take the plus one move? Its tempting because he can be given block on his next skill and basically become a blitzer...

The double on my Runner is not that useful. I coud give him guard I suppose but block is probably better.... He's normally going to be inside a cage not on the outside so guard is of limited utility I would think? I know block is boring but its also good for him. The only other skill might be strong arm if I had developed him as a thrower.

Any suggestions?

Cheers

(I'm not sure if this isn't becoming more of a team blog now...)

[El_Jairo]

I wouldn't take +MV on that lineman, as you said he just would be a blitzer. Take AV9 to put him on the LoS and he will take the pain more cheerfully

I think guard is never bad on a runner, you can never have enough guard on an elf team. He can have an alternative role on offence: use him as a guard for blocking holes, with his NoS he can be a perfect catcher too

[oryxwild]

I disagree with El Jairo. Out of all the elves, I think that dark elves benefit the most from +movement. Also, with the change in team value computation since lrb4, it is no longer disadvantageous to have a blitzer vs a lineman with +mv and block. True, the lineman will never have as many skills as a blitzer with the same spp, but there is plenty of room in any team for a fifth blitzer with only 2 or 3 skills.

Definitely go for the +mv. I would normally agree that guard is the best choice for elves, however, I think that guard on a runner is just begging to be knocked over and fouled to death. Fragile pieces with high movement and good ball moving skills are already targets enough without using them as guards, too.