Wood Elf League blog - The Boy Bandits

[whitetiger]

take the strip ball. that's how Wood Elves win. They steal the ball and score. You've already seen that. Keep doing it.

[Spiky]

and here I thought that WE could not become more gay... then I saw this team, named "Boy bandits"... as if tights n redicules hair was not enough.

Well... the members are mostly from boy bands...I thought it was a good pun

I did this so that when they die, I don't get too frustrated and can have a quiet chuckle. It was a bit disasterous that the crowd killed my Wardancer last game, but knowing it was probably because he was called Robbie Williams lessens the pain a bit

@ Pubbowler - I'll try frenzy as a skill on the next wardancer when I get him, although I'm going to need to be very careful when blitzing into cages - or is this to develop him as an anti-receiver type player?

[plasmoid]

Hi Spiky,
congrats on doing so well.
A word of advice from a fellow wood elf coach:

Spiky said:

leaving me with one turn so I set the catcher on the LOS and prayed for the quick snap result to give me a scoring chance

Actually, you don't need a quick snap to have a chance. Check this out:
viewtopic.php?t=14962

Also,

The Wardancer with Strip Ball then got pushed into the crowed who killed him.

Ouch. Here is a bit of controversial wisdom:
The trick with wood elfs isn't so much winning. It's keeping your team afloat.
So, sometimes, it's not worth it to risk your players trying to get that extra TD. Sure, it will win you SPPs. But risking your players lives will lose you SPPs and cash for replacements! Glory is fickle, death is permanent, so to speak.

So, not that you could have known that it would go this way. But you were already up 3-1. So even if your opponent scored, you'd still win. In that scenario, I'd recommend trying to slow him down, while taking as few risks as possible.

Cheers
Martin

[whitetiger]

plasmoid, love that link. I've got an 8 MA blitzer on my DE. I may have to try this.

[PubBowler]

@ Pubbowler - I'll try frenzy as a skill on the next wardancer when I get him, although I'm going to need to be very careful when blitzing into cages - or is this to develop him as an anti-receiver type player?

He doesn't go into cages. Too hard to set up even blocks both times.

He picks off opposing players who stray within two squares of the sidelines.
With so much mobility (MA8, Dodge & Leap) he can threaten most of the board and makes it easy to punish mistakes.

With the addition for a catcher to assist (another highly mobile player) you'll soon find opponents have to give much more thought to keeping their players on the pitch than they want to.

Or lots less players.

Either way works for you.

[FischerKing]

Good advice here I think.

So far I think you did wise purchases, I agreed on the tree and I agree on going for a replacement wardancer as those are real gamewinners.

For my part, strip ball and frenzy are both intelligent first choices on the dancers, but dont jump cages all the time (I think plasmoid said something clever about that, listen to him ) its the most frequent end of lives of wardancers. Do it once in a while when the chance is really good and you have a clear plan for picking up, passing and scoring, but otherwise learn to steal the ball by other means, mainly kick and speed at the opening turns, its more challenging and less luck dependant, and it will force you to be a better coach.
Use frenzy as that guy just told you, AND to jump cages (but still not too often ) Great thing about frenzy and developed teams (lets say he has sure hands block on the ballcarrier) is that you can push the ballcarrier out of the cage and get more dice on the second block (often needs guard) Frenzy guy takes tackle next and mighty blow on doubles and starts taking all your blitzes in turns were you doesnt have another important blitz needed to be taken by another player.

About side step: Dont think it is so essential if you play your wardancers right. Its nice though and you can take it when you have nothing better to take.

I dont like wrestle on woodelves too much, really I dont. It puts you on the ground and thats a waste of movement, and it makes holes in your defense. Ok, it also takes down the other guy, but for woodelves I think the downsides outweighs the possitives. Another thing is, a player who just used wrestle cant catch the ball next turn as a block player would be able to, thus he will not be of much use in a turn were you have to score. If you want to build another kind of cagebreaker you can take it: Wrestle, tackle and leap basicly, and then it can be more usefull, but you probably dont need it as you have your dancers.

On Throwers: One is enough I should think. A defensive thrower arent as usefull as a catcher doing the excact same job. High movement and agility is the most important things for a player whos job it is to pick up the ball in your defense, and dodge really really helps too. If you are lucky enough to get a full roster, start developing the second Thrower just like the other one, as he needs a replacement once in a while, especially when he dies

I dont know if I agree on your starting roster, but its probably ok. I like 9 lineelves myself as its important to start building them early, and maybe you shouldnt score so much with your catcher. On average 3 or 4 will die before your team is developed, and that would leave you 6 instead of 5 lineelves, hopefully with a minimum of 2 skills each.

Good luck

[whitetiger]

yep, don't rely on your catcher to score all the time. He'll end up with 6 skills and no other player on your team will have any. Then when that 150 SPP catcher gets killed, (probably by a foul), you won't have a fall back player to pick up the slack. Try to level as much of your team as evenly as possible. That way, all your players will have 2 or 3 skills that you can rely on consistantly.

As for jumping into cages, not without a back up plan. You might want to workout how to peel the cage instead of jumping into it. You jump into a cage and miss the ball, now the Wardancer is just fresh meat. And even if you do knock the ball loose, if that Wardancer is still in the cage at the end of the play, that other team is going to nail him. Any player that can jump into a cage and get the ball back out of the cage has a target painted on him the size of Montana and I'd bounce him around like a pinball until he went down and out of the game.

And if you want to take wrestle, please lay down all your Woodies in front of my players.

[FischerKing]

Think we pretty much agree there If I jump a cage, I try to be able to score in the same turn to save the wardancer. Ofcourse you cannot allways do that and sometimes you just have to gamble a little bit, weigh your options at least and dont fall back on that 'leap into the cage' plan every single turn. You might 'work' the cage as tiger there was talking about, you might try to stop it by dodging out 1 square in front of it each turn and you might blow it up before its properly formed. You might isolate it by your high movement and your opponents mistakes (95% of all blood bowl players makes some pretty big mistakes in bashy vs agility matchups) and then swarm it or push it against the sideline. It all depends how the game forms itself, but the great thing about woodelves is, that they have so many options for defensive strategies. If your opponent has a huge streak of luck, he takes out half your team and you loose all you re-rolls rolling 1's, dont worry too much. At one point you realize you cannot do anything and you simply stay down or out of reach with all your players, then come back next half with a full team and hopefully a little more luck, steal the ball and winn 2-1 A funny side-bonus to that strategy I tried some weeks ago in a league game vs a hardcore dwarf team, is how people simply forget that you are still in the game eaven though you only have 5 players left on the field. Dwarf coach send more than half hes team after my fleeing players to make sure I couldnt hide anywhere, while hes cage broke up a bit and 4 players was running out of my reach towards the endzone. I ran the other way for some turns and he followed untill I had nowhere to run, then I simply changed direktions and ran through hes team with the rest of my players, leaving half hes slow team near his own endzone, and catching hes small band of players with the ball who was forced to score instead of stalling it out. I ended up winning that game 2-1.

Forgot something about frenzy. Its also usefull when you do those oneturnscoring attempts. When you have frenzy you can do it with as slow a player as movement 7 (in theory that is, only had it work for me with that slow players a few times) And if you have 2 frenzy players you can score with movement 6 (far out theory, but possible)

[Spiky]

Hi All,

Thanks for all your feedback! I've now had another couple of games to report on...

The first was against a new dwarf team in the league. The guy took 2 runners, 1 blitzer with the rest being longbeards. I thought this was a bit of a sub-optimal starting team but the coach played well and shut me down plenty of times with the tackle skill.

I still need to heed previous advise and play more conservatively, as a stupid dodges through tackle zones injured my catcher early on who missed the next game.

The game ended 1-1 draw, I had several players in the KO box and the only injuries I recevied were from failed dodges. I earned just enough to pay for another wardancer

The second game was against an Orc team of even team value. The coach recived in the first half and retained possesion before scoring in turn 8. He played close to the sidelines and used a blitzer with sure hands as his ball carrier. I failed several opportunities to crowd push the blitzer my managing to roll a string of 3 skulls in a row and turning over

I scored in 2 turns in the second half, then managed to steal the ball due to a failed pickup and score again in my turn 4. Unfortunately I couldn't stop the orcs again pushing down a wide zone and scoring in turn 8 to equalise.

The game was pretty bloodless which was great for me - I also won 70k for the match, and gained 2 improvement rolls. A lineelf is taking Block and I rolled a double 4 for the Wardancer.

Looking at the skills, It looks like there aren't many Strength/Passing skills that would make a massive difference to this player - I suspect that Mighty Blow is probably the best choice given previous advise, then maybe frenzy or tackle next?

My team now looks like this - Hopefully if I survive the next game with no injuries, I'll have enough money for another player and be able to lose the journeyment for a while.

Record: 4 wins, 2 Draws, 1 loss

Matt Goss Wardancer 11 SPP (Strip Ball)
Chesney Hawkes Wardancer 6 SPP (Rolled a double)
Simon Le Bon Catcher 16 SPP (Block, +1MA)
Dane Bowers Line Elf 6 SPP (Block)
Ronan Keating Line Elf 14 SPP (Kick)
Stephen Gately Line Elf 1 SPP
Peter Andre Line Elf 1 SPP
Justin Timberlake Line Elf 8 SPP (Dodge, Niggling Injury)
Tony Hadley Line Elf 11 SPP (Wrestle)
Daniel O'Donnell Treeman 5 SPP
Apothecary
2 RR
FF 5
Treasury: 70,000

Cheers
Spiky

[PubBowler]

If Chesney is going to get Frenzy, I'd take Juggeranut.

If he's going to take Tackle then Mighty Blow.

Either way, he'll be the one & only...

[Andromidius]

Save the cash and get yourself another Catcher next game, for sure.

And I'd say Juggernaut is a more useful skill to give a Wardancer. All the better for busting open cages that are being protected by Stand Firm.

~Andromidius

[FischerKing]

MB, Frenzy, Tackle is a pretty sound way to go. Jugger is also usefull, but personaly I prefer it on my strip ball wardancer. If he rolls another double he can take piling on and be the killer kind of player every team can build in LRB 5. Guard and Jump up is decent skills for wardancers, I just like Jugger and mb better.

Save for a thrower, or buy a journeyman lineman who gets an mvp. You have the number of lineelves you need for your developed team, but you will loose some of them before you get there so another one is a good option.
The thrower is imo better than the catcher because you need to start building him, and with only 1 skill (accurate) he will boost your offense alot more than a catcher would. Also, it takes longer for a thrower to gain a skill than a catcher, so start working on him sooner rather than later. The catcher can easily gain his skill once you buy him.
Wether you save for a catcher or a thrower, its nice to have a journeyman to take some punishment of your regular players.

[Spiky]

Ok - thanks for your comments!

I'm going to make use of the double for the Mighty Blow, then maybe frenzy following on from that

Regards,
Spiky

[Marlow]

This may sound like a silly question but how do you use kick?

I know it gives you better Ball control but where are you trying to get the ball to go? Deep so that it is harder to form a cage? Into one of the sidelines close to the LOS so you can hopefully get to it quick? Just as far away from the thrower/surehand player as possible?

[PubBowler]

This may sound like a silly question but how do you use kick?

I know it gives you better Ball control but where are you trying to get the ball to go? Deep so that it is harder to form a cage? Into one of the sidelines close to the LOS so you can hopefully get to it quick? Just as far away from the thrower/surehand player as possible?

All three can work.

You want to make it difficult for them to gather (forcing dice rolls such as GFIs or dodges) as well as improving your ability to steal the ball with your own players.

Where to place this to gain that effect depends on your team and your opponent's positioning and relative mobility.