How to crush Wood Elves

[Smurf]

After reading that WE are broken I thougt it was rot. How does an AV7 team become broken? Personally I loathe the AV9ers nigh impossible to punch through, they should stop hitting each other and play the touch downs, against lesser armoured teams, well go for it.

A few teams have great expertise:

The elves collectively with WE being slightly better than HE, HE get safe throw and PE get Nos IIRC.

Simply these teams can be played badly and suffer. I have seen a PE team lose game after game because the coach couldn't deal with it. Another coach has done well with a PE team.

In one league my WE rocked, the worst team they faced was an Orc team because the coach was good. A Dwarf team failed because the coach did not get it.

Simple guide to taking down the WE

Defend Deep
Use skills like Tackle, Mighty Blow, Wreste, Pass Block, Grab, Standfirm, Sidestep, Fend, Guard and Kick

Attack Slowly, the more you can grind the better if you have the chance:

Go for the Thrower
Grind the Line Elves

If Attrition is to work make the Wardancers stand in places they don't want to.
Stress out the Catchers

Ignore The Treeman

Note if you can get the Thrower on the ground and if you cannot injure it on a block, consider a foul. Taking their ball moving abilities really will slow down the WE. Trust me, I know, I fear for my Thrower and he does not go on the pitch long, the 2nd Thrower is not as good but still weak. Hence taking him out will have me putting the 1st Thrower on.

[Porkus_Maximus]

Defend Deep
Use skills like Tackle, Mighty Blow, Wreste, Pass Block, Grab, Standfirm, Sidestep, Fend, Guard and Kick

You just blew my mind.

[stashman]

Foul, foul, foul

Grind, grind, grind

Play dirty!

Don't let them play with the ball!

[Smurf]

I'm a WE player and I know coaches that suck. Not going deep means you are going to lose. Once coach new he had one chance to score, dropping the ball would be recovered and thrown within the next turn with a TD to boot.

WE coaches have to be good and their opponents need to be good too.

[Funksultan]

WE coaches have to be good and their opponents need to be good too.

LoL! C'mon, who is this? Fess up!

[mattgslater]

Sucky Wood Elves suck harder than any other Tier I team, because their players are expensive and their AV is low. Good Wood Elves rock harder than any other team at all, because...
* Everybody (except the Tree, if there is one) can 2TTD without GFI or with only one GFI, including wingers and often safeties.
* Everybody can cross midfield, laterally, from anywhere.
* Everybody dodges, picks up and QPs on a 2.
* The Wardancer is far and away the best positional in the game. Note that he's not the most expensive.
* The Treeman is the most reliable solitary big guy in the game, given a team that can score quickly. And the conventional wisdom says he's optional. Is that not a gigantic hint that this team is cheesy?
* Second-best Thrower in the game, though maybe not as value.
* Third-best Catcher in the game (used to be #1), fourth-best by value.
* AV doesn't matter if you're standing up. All that MA and starting Dodge (not to mention all those starting linos replaced by positionals over time) means that many WE teams can easily field 9 or more Dodge players all the time after just 5-6 games.

[Smurf]

My start up is:

1 Thrower
2 Catchers
2 Wardancers
6 Line
1 Apoth

= 980K

forget FF you'll pick it soon enough

Do not get into a blocking game. Set the board up to make good of any mistakes.

20k in the bank for the next
Thrower
Then buy: Catcher, Catcher, Line, Line

Any doubles should be WD - Mighty Blow, L - Guard, T - Strong Arm, Catcher - Stand firm (it's funny).

Normal Skills:

WD Tackle, Sidestep
Catchers: offence - sprint/surefeet/Leap, Defence - Passblock/Leap/Fend
Throwers: Offence - Accurate/Safe Throw: Defence - Kick/Sure Hands
Line - Wrestle and Dodge x 3, Blodgers x2 (reserve for the WD), Dodge and Fend x 3

Any AG increase - exploit leap and passblock combo, or Safethrow etc
ST increases - igrnore for all positions except Line and Wardancers
MA increase - ignore for all positions except Throwers and Catchers
AV increase - ignore for all positions except Line and Wardancers

Forget the Treeman, does not fit in the style of play and also he adds another 50K to your TRR and you cannot use Throw Team Mate (note this may change in 6th but doubt it).

Secret is to score quickly. When on defence let the other team score, take advantage of any loose balls of course, put up a rolling defence, blitz their key players (Thrower/Catchers etc)

Remember many teams have throwers with 2 rerolls (surehands and pass) or catchers with 2 rerolls (catch and dodge)

Amzon and Dwarf will crack under pressure
Human, Khemri, Orc, Skaven will sorely miss those rerolls.

Many teams blitzers will take Mighty Blow first chance, all except line dwarves with their tackle are a threat. But to rack up that many threats has to be be a team to stop the dodgers period. Simple, target the tackler! Likewise tackle is your key to success with War Dancers, suddenly 2 spots on the die mean your chewing grass etc.

Wrestle? it creates gaps! nuff said.

[Smurf]

WE coaches have to be good and their opponents need to be good too.

LoL! C'mon, who is this? Fess up!

A bad WE coach will get walked over.

A bad opponent will get walked over.

A bad opponent vs a bad WE coach means the WEs get walked over.

There is a style of play and you have to play it.

[mattgslater]

Wood Elves get bigger ups and bigger downs than many teams, yeah. They pay for their athletic superiority with annoying management issues. Kind of like the Dallas Cowboys.

They're not poking fun at you because they disagree with you. They're poking fun at you because your use of tautologies is Berra-esque. If you're doing it deliberately, I must applaud your subtle sense of sports humor. "If you want to win the game, you gotta score more points than the other team!" But it's not a great way to make friends, stating the obvious without proceeding to some not-so-obvious inference.

But what I really replied to say was:

1) I'm terrified of playing 16 turns with no Team Re-Rolls. Wood Elves don't have to have lots of them, and it's ok to run out if you're getting good use out of them, but beginning the half with no TRRs at all makes the game much harder. Particularly with the lousy Wood Elf AV and high player cost, ending an early turn on the first die roll is the kiss of death (well, not quite, but it's very bad). Also having TRRs makes lino QPs and TDs much safer and leads to better team development. Generally, with Wood Elves, I want two TRRs, but I can make do with one if I must.

2) Wood Elves may not have great D-linemen, but the linos are great all-round players! Why all those positionals? In my experience, this is the best 1M Wood Elf build: 2 Wardancers, 1 Catcher, 8 Linemen, 2 TRRs, 10k banked. Hire an Apothecary first, then just hire positional after positional.

3) In these days of Journeymen and weakened Apothecaries, the Apoth is no longer the powerhouse he used to be: it's best to hire one out of winnings ASAP rather than to start one on the roster. Given that it will only take one game to hire him, but hiring a TRR will take 2-3 games, the Apothecary is not much more likely to save a player than is the TRR, and the TRR may well gain you an improvement or two over the time it takes to haul in the 100k you would have had to spend.

That said, starting with one TRR isn't insane on this team. In a short season or a tournament, it makes sense to go for only 1 TRR, and then take a Thrower and two more Catchers. In a longer fixed season with a postseason tournament and a less-bashy overall team mix, dropping a TRR for a Treeman isn't a terrible idea: you do pay for it in the short run, but once the Tree gets Guard your line becomes pretty darn nasty against other ST3 teams.

[Funksultan]

1 TRR, maybe. 2, better. Zero?? I would crush this team into the ground like nobody's business. They can't even dodge away reliably...

Smurf, have you actually PLAYED this team against other, live players? 11 Nobody on the bench, and no TRR. I would crush them beyond all hope of recognition. Heh, I'd insure all their cash was spent replacing players.

Smurf, read some of the other strategy guides, or better, play your wood elves in a real league or two, and then come tell us some of your conclusions.

"Secret is to score quickly. When on defence let the other team score,"

Heh, Matt is a good guy, but maybe a little too nice. Some of us are making fun of you a bit because we disagree with you.

[mattgslater]

Yeah, the bit about letting the other team score is a bit wrong. Forcing a TD is sometimes the lesser evil, I'll go there. But usually you want to stop them from scoring. Winning on defense is how you save your team and build your players.

[striknein]

To expand on some of the other points wrt roster management:

1 Thrower
2 Wardancers
8 Linos
2 RR
0FF

980k

Why would you select a positional that, when used as intended, completely sucks SPPs away from players that would otherwise spend 4+ games getting a skill-up? The most effective way to skill those linos up is to use them to score in early games. Only after my linos have _all_ gotten their first skill (either wrestle or dodge, or guard on a double), will I start hiring catchers. The reason? Every player on this team can score in two turns, your thrower can reliably throw the ball deep in your first few games, and everyone catches on a 2 in no tackle zones. If you field a catcher on your starting roster, the temptation is way too high to constantly chuck the ball to him, taking away valuable SPPs that could otherwise be spent getting all the rest of your players skilled. Also, fielding two catchers early in your starting lineup not only hampers your (admittedly weak) ability to throw blocks, but it will cause the added risk associated with an empty bench due to ST2.

Now, after 10 games or so, you're going to have a bunch of linos with at least 1 skill, your Wardancers should have at least 2, and you're going to have a thrower who's likely working on his 4th skillup. With a roster like that, what's the best use for rookie catchers? Well, after a few quick TDs, you can start developing them in a way that makes them very valuable: use them as mobile assists. Skills like sidestep, block, and fend will make them very annoying against players trying to clear a path. Their higher movement puts them in positions that your linos can't get to. Develop a one-turn scorer for when you need a turn 16 win. Otherwise, use them as big buy fodder or skill them up as a replacement for when one inevitably gets killed.

The biggest challenge that I've had in developing my team is making sure that all the players develop at the same pace. It's my opinion that the only runaway star player on a WE team is the thrower. If you let any one player start running away with SPPs, at higher team values you're going to have a lot of trouble mitigating skills that your opposing team's players have gathered. Since most of your team starts with no skills, this can easily occur.

[mattgslater]

Catchers improve everybody by catching passes for SPP. Nobody ever said you had to score with the guy. And if you have more than one rookie on your squad after 6 games, you're doing it wrong.

[Smurf]

I think a catcher is useful because it can get passblock. This makes the game eaiser for the WE and opponents live in fear of it.

I think Linos can have no skills after 10 games, they are scrimmage fodder. Eventually they will earn points etc and whilst the team has a more developed position players these can be saved for later as the Linos try to keep up.

Pros and Cons are: So many skills given to the linos = a higher team rating, this means more inducements. It was hard enough with the inducements played against my team without adding more. Higher the TV the more inducements.

One of the first tricks in the game is for the Thrower to score a TD.

Styles of play I guess and so far after 10 games the team still has not rerolls.

[DoubleSkulls]

Pass Block is a pretty marginal skill imo. You can only use it when your opponent passes (and about 2/3 of teams rarely or never pass) and you need to be in range to do anything. Most coaches live in fear of interceptions (and 5+ rerollable ones in particular!) so just stop you having the chance. That can be useful, but hardly game breaking.

My preference is for block, sidestep, diving tackle, shadowing for defensive builds (with tackle & pass block options for the next two skills).

WE catchers also make good auxiliary blitzers - dauntless, wrestle, strip ball etc. However the War Dancers are so good in this role its only if you get something odd happening its worth doing (like +ST on a catcher).

If you get +MA on one the turn them into a one turn wonder - sprint, sure feet, sidestep, leap

WE linemen are great players. Give them wrestle & dodge and they can form a solid base for the others to work from - or even provide the plays themselves 7347 would be a positional stat line in almost any other team.