Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

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El_Jairo
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Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by El_Jairo »

Maybe I missed it by bad searching but I'm lacking any dedicated thread to Wood Elf League Tactics.

I'm new to wood elves as my main team has been for Dark Elves for a decade now. In 40k my preferred race is Dark Eldar and I have the impression that Wood Elves have the same glass cannon feel.

My first question to you, the wise Wood Elf coaches, is: why would you take Block over Wrestle on a LineElf? As I see it Block is for ball-carriers and guard front liners. Since guard needs a double on a Wood Elf, I'm not planning on it with AV7 limiting the lifetime of a liner to max 2 skills?

So I have my money on Dodge, followed by Wrestle.

Now that I write this down, I do think Line Elfs need to do a lot of screening, so for this task Block is more efficient if multiple players want to break through your line. On the other hand wrestle stops the blitzing player in his movement...

So no, I have a hard time on picking Block Over Wrestle on high MA Liners.

PS: I started off with 1 WD Treeman and 9 Liners 2 TRR and 3FF for a short league and won my first game 5-0 vs Chaos, due to Fame +2 and Throw a rock KO on CW.
My impression is that the Treeman serves as the perfect roadblock to push the action towards the side-lines, where higher MA pays off.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by mattgslater »

Wrestle's good. I think most WE coaches like it over Block, some even take it later on a Wardancer. Dodge is good too, but easier to negate: TPOMB wreaks havoc on Dodge linos. Wood Elves have to rack up the wins at low TV, 'cause as their opponents get more SPP and better killers, the hill gets steeper. They're a premier race at all values, though, and a good underdog.

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What is Nuffle's view? Through a window, two-by-three. He peers through snake eyes.
What is Nuffle's lawn? Inches, squares, and tackle zones: Reddened blades of grass.
What is Nuffle's tree? Risk its trunk, space the branches. Touchdowns are its fruit.
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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by El_Jairo »

Wow, OMG, I can't find any words to describe this.

I just played my second league game with my WE. First I rolled double 5 on the Wardancer skill, I didn't have much time to think about it and I went with MB because we only have 10 more games before Play-Offs and there isn't too much AV9 not to take it. In my mind I wanted a MB on the WD to make a difference. And it did.

My second game was vs Khorne Deamons, which had 100k inducements for TRR. The roster had: Bloodthirster, 1 Herald, 2 Bloodletters, 6 Pit Fighters and a Journeyman. 2 TRR (only).

My roster looked like:
WD +MB, Treeman and 8 rookie liners and the journeyman and an Apoth.

Again we pulled off Fame +2 so 3FF payed off big time. Khorne won the toss but decided to give me the ball.
I believe I pulled of a KO with the MB Wardancer and then I had both down on the Treeman vs BloodThirster. I thought, no the claw: BT goes KO, Tree goes Prone. That turn one me the game.
His Turn 1 ended with a both down on my journey, who CASsed his assailant :o

The MB on the wardancer gave me about 4 KO's during the first half. I could have made an faster TD but I refrained because he had such a big KO box. So I took another turn or two to get more players off the field.

To wrap it up: I got 3 CAS on the Tree (two defensive one, I guess my opponent tried to please the Blood God by offering the blood of his own players :)) I got 4 lino's a skill.

Only downside was that my aftergame rolling wasn't so hot: I barely made the 5 FF (2,1,2) roll and RR 2 for winning into 1. Which meant I couldn't hire the Journey with 2 SPP. I'm saving for the second WD of course and than I would follow up with catcher and thrower to provide leader for cheap RR. Or do Wood Elves need 3 TRR?

FYI I give the total league composition (the players they lost as first game day was brutally bloody)
Chaos(I played already, and he only suffered 1 MNG and -AV on beastmen)
Chaos (MNG Beastmen)
CD (2 BC 6 CDB 2 TRR build got their Apoth)
DE (2 Blitz, 2 Ass (-MA) and 1 dead LineElf) He went with a Assassins team
KhD (1 BT, 1 Herald, 2 BL, 6 Fighters, my second game)
Liz ( Kroxy, 4 Sauri and 6 skinks, 3 TR, my next game and one of the reasons I picked MB on the WD)
Orc (4 Bob, 4 Blitz, 1 Thr, 1 Liner, Troll died first game) They are played by my friend and I fear them the most as he won 3-0 and all TD were by blitzers. We meet on matchday 5, hopefully he doesn't have more than 1 tackle by then.
Skaven (lost Stormvermin and linerat but got Apoth in first game) Another reason for MB!
Undead (Experimental build with 6 skellies added to 8 positionals, one skelly died first game) Another reason for MB!
Undead (8 positionals and 3 zombies, 2 TRR) he got lucky and landed the MVP on a Mummy for a skill
WE (WD Treeman Catcher build, WD -ST! 2x LineElf Dead and another MNG) I really feel for this guy, two losses and his team is gone, only Catcher and Treeman left with no skills.
WE My team, you all know now how I lucked into 5-0 and 4-0 wins with only losing 1 LineElf to -AG. I'm afraid people will think that I know what I'm doing with WE but I'm just tremendously lucky.
I loose my TRR mostly to greedy blocks when I'm ready to run the TD in and my both games were decided by early game injuries snowballing my into a numeric advantage.

OK I'll stop complaining and start wondering which skill I'm going to choose for my 4 LineElf and Treeman.
I would say: kick, 3x Dodge as I'm not facing CD soon. And Guard for the Tree of course.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by Heff »

Grab on the tree, keep your enemies close.

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Heff...Keeping the Dwarf (and lego) hate alive
If you cannot stall out for an 8 turn drive to score with dwarves then you need to go and play canasta with your dad..if you can find him.
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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by El_Jairo »

Heff wrote:Grab on the tree, keep your enemies close.
That sounds like not an half bad idea. ;)
As the line elves are not going to be geared for making a lot of blocks anyway.
I presume that guard would be next.

I am considering tackle on the MB WD before strip ball. That way I can handle those dodgers in the league. They typically are the biggest threat in terms of speed. So those are my top targets of choice. I am having the best results when I can split up the opponent's players.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by Smeborg »

Grab on the Tree is also a big help with 1-turn TDs.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by mattgslater »

I like Guard, but I've seen good coaches do both.

Reason: ''
What is Nuffle's view? Through a window, two-by-three. He peers through snake eyes.
What is Nuffle's lawn? Inches, squares, and tackle zones: Reddened blades of grass.
What is Nuffle's tree? Risk its trunk, space the branches. Touchdowns are its fruit.
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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by Pedda »

I'd go with guard on the tree for the simple reason that it helps the linelefs on the LOS to survive.
I don't see the tree getting to his second skill any time soon and that's also a reason for guard. Make the most of that one skill.

On a 'fling-tree I'd go grab first but not for a wood elf one.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by Jimmy Fantastic »

Grab for the ots.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by Heff »

Jimmy Fantastic wrote:Grab for the ots.
Jimmy agrees with me, and as we all know.

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Heff...Keeping the Dwarf (and lego) hate alive
If you cannot stall out for an 8 turn drive to score with dwarves then you need to go and play canasta with your dad..if you can find him.
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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by El_Jairo »

Heff wrote:
Jimmy Fantastic wrote:Grab for the ots.
Jimmy agrees with me, and as we all know.
I'm not faced with 2-1 grind teams so far but I can see the added value to make OTS more likely to happen.

Furthermore I want to try out the tactic of putting the tree right behind LoS on defensive Kick-offs. It can work as giving all LineElf Fend for that turn. It also mitigates the problem of the tree going down first turn and trying to stand up for the rest of the Drive. Giving him guard doesn't really help if he stay prone for quite some time, sure Grab neither but that you aren't tempted to put him in a situation where he can get blocked a lot.

I am convinced that Elves make the most out of a mobile guard and the Treeman can't really be called mobile ;)

Another point I am thinking about is taking +AV on Line Elves, over +MA.
If my calculations are right AV8 breaks 33% less than AV7, on normal knock downs. And as Line Elves do get hit a lot it seems a very useful addition as second or third skill. If the occasion arises, because on double 5 I would take guard first.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by Jimmy Fantastic »

Yeah one of the top Lizardman coaches on FUMBBL takes +AV on Skinks for that same reason.
You could check out Garion's playbook on Plasmoid's site.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by El_Jairo »

Jimmy Fantastic wrote:Yeah one of the top Lizardman coaches on FUMBBL takes +AV on Skinks for that same reason.
You could check out Garion's playbook on Plasmoid's site.
Thanks Jimmy for reminding me about Plasmoid's site.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by Smeborg »

Heff wrote:
Jimmy Fantastic wrote:Grab for the ots.
Jimmy agrees with me, and as we all know.
He agrees with me too, as ever.

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Re: Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

Post by El_Jairo »

Looking at my next 4 matches:
Lizards
Chaos
Orcs
Undead

My skill ups are: Treeman and 5 Line Elves
I'm a faced with a dilemma: do I take tackle on one of the Liners? I don't feel confident I can handle 6 Skinks with only on MB WD. Sure I want to blitz a skink with him every turn but I need at least a back up and being able to mark a skink is nice too.
The fact that the skill will be useless for 2 games does scare me a little as the Orcs are coached by my friend and he is rather a good coach and won't be likely to field a Goblin.

But I'm leaning towards this attitude: I absolutely need to be able to handle the Skinks or there is only 1/6 sides really good in a critical situation as I lack Strip Ball. Only Block in my skillset to double those odds. Tackle does the same and also passive negates dodge, creating more chances for stunty AV7 guys to hurt themselves.
And if Nuffle foresees that back-up blitzer/sweeper is not the role of a Line Elf, he will let some Orcs or Chaos hurt him.
Ironically enough the Orcs play the Lizards right after me and thus before our game. So I don't want to put too much hurt on their skinks so having a non-MB option is even more important.

Basically I'm asking myself if I can afford it to give away 20k inducement value to Chaos (I would rather think ok with only 1 skill on the team) and Orcs (Who need to rebuy their Troll but will have the cash for it but also no bench and I should have my second WD for sure).

I want to hear your view on this but I generally rate inducement TV only max 75% of true TV. Anything above 100k though I would like to avoid as it gives away a TRR or double babes, which are a great boost for rookie teams.

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