Skills for wardancers??

[el Superbeasto]

EDIT: New question 2014-02-03!

A glorious victory against Norse!
Well, not really, but sweltering heat helped me quite a bit and I managed to pull a 2-1 victory in the last turn. -And even more astoundingly; again no injured players!
In all fairness, I must give some of the credit to the help in this thread (Thank you!), and therefore I'll keep asking questions in the hope of more success.
Question: Two wardancers with skill advancement:

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I'm thinking Strip Ball and Guard. Thoughts?


(Previous questions, which aren't relevant anymore:)

2.
So, as written below, I won my first match against chaos dwarfs 2-0 and - hooray! - only a badly hurt caused on my team!!
My catcher scored twice and rolled a double on his skill-roll. So question being:
What skill to choose?
A lot of people seem to recommend guard, but how often will I want a catcher engaged in the fighting?
Should I just take block instead to help him survive?

1.
So... About to start a new (short) league (10 games), and this time I'm going for woodies, so my question is regarding the starting roster. I'm playing elf because I have a newly painted elf team, and I'm playing wood elf because I have a treeman to go with it, so there's no discussion there: My roster starts with a treeman!
Basically, I've more or less decided to go with the following:
1x Treeman
2x War Dancers
7x Lineman
1x RR

Which leaves with one empty spot on my roster and 100k to shop for.
Question being: Thrower or Catcher??

It seems, most playbooks tend to favour the catcher to the thrower. My thinking was, that the thrower gives a bit more strength PLUS the option of skilling him up quickly and taking leader to compensate for my lack of re-rolls.

What would be your thoughts on the subject?
I'm meeting:
1. Chaos dwarfs,
2. Norse,
3. Dark elf,
4. Chaos pact,
5. Necromantic
-And then the same teams once again.
Meeting chaos dwarfs in the first match also make me lean towards the thrower, as the catcher will just be a ST2 player with a useless dodge.

Question #2:
I also considered this roster:
1x WarDancer
1x Treeman
3x Catcher
1x Thrower
5x Lineman
1x RR

This would give me more positionals and a lot of dodgers, but would leave me with less strength and block, which might cause problems in my first two matches against chaos dwarfs and norse.

All help appreciated!

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Catcher is more useful. 2 WDs is non negotiable.
1 RR sux so I can see the point in the thrower but it shouldn't take you too long to save up for a second RR.

[El_Jairo]

I'm not really that confident to start with only 1 TRR. I started Tree + WD and 3 FF for my 10 game (+play-offs) league.
Mostly because TRR don't die. Starting without catchers and throwers will give your line elves more SPP as they are now your only options for ball handling (WD is doing all the blitzing).

But given the choice I would prefer a catcher, he brings more to the team and even vs CD his dodge is important as you should be able to stay clear of those dwarf blockers, given the speed difference.
A thrower on the other hand acts most of the time as a line-men with 20k cost increase, until the point where you can give him leader, that immediately compensates for the higher cost.

Vs most opponents you should be able to out-run them and don't need to pass. I prefer to not start with a thrower as you can rotate ball pick-up to any Liner who needs 1 SPP for a skill. But if you like passing play, than I can understand that you prefer the thrower. But I wouldn't take him for his strength as you should not plan to block a lot with him.

[Pedda]

A thrower on the other hand acts most of the time as a line-men with 20k cost increase, until the point where you can give him leader, that immediately compensates for the higher cost.

20k extra for a thrower and 20k for leader = 40k
It's just a 10k difference to a normal RR, but a normal RR can't get KOed nor hurt.
Only advatage is when going up against a master chef, but that shouldn't be much of a problem anyway.

So, do you reallt need a thrower?

[el Superbeasto]

I'm not really that confident to start with only 1 TRR.

No, it's probably not the wisest/strongest of choices, but I want to have some fun with different positionals as well. It's a friendly league and I've won the last five, so I already feel a bit bad about choosing a team as strong as WE. However, I have this newly painted team that I've never played with, so I'm sticking with an elf team. I considered standard Elf, but then I can't use my Treeman.

20k extra for a thrower and 20k for leader = 40k
It's just a 10k difference to a normal RR, but a normal RR can't get KOed nor hurt.

True dat! Taking leader is not so much about team value though, as it's about getting the extra RR fast.
First thing I'm going to buy will of course be an apothecary. From there I'll need to save another 100k, before I can get another RR. Money I'd prefer to spend on extra players (or replacement players, if Nuffle so decides ).

But for the rest of the arguments, I agree that the catcher is probably the most useful choice.
Thanks for all your help, guys, and more oppinions are of course more than welcome!

[Aliboon]

If you're only starting with one reroll, I'd go the thrower to get Leader asap.

Personally I'd always start a Woody team with two rerolls as they need them and to get them later costs twice as much, although with your second teamsheet you have a lot of built in rerolls (even more if you swapped the tree for the second 'dancer) so with that team, I might consider just starting with one.

Look at the rosters here:

http://www.plasmoids.dk/bbowl/playbooks/Woodelf2.pdf

Catcher v thrower is a personal preference. I've always had more luck starting with the thrower, but that's maybe just be me.

[el Superbeasto]

Thanks for your reply too, Aliboon.
I played my first match yesterday, and ended up going with the catcher. I ended up winning 2-0 and scoring twice with my catcher, so all was well, but man, did I struggle with only one re-roll! The fact that my wardancers kept rolling skull on one-dice blocks, didn't exactly help...
Anyway, the catcher did his job and I enjoyed the extra speed, but I think, I need another re-roll asap. Thankfully, I won 90k, so that's a big step towards it. 50k has already been spent on an apothecary, which I fear I'll need, as I'm meeting norse next.

But, now I have a new question... I'll update the top post with them in a second.

PS: Thanks for the link, but I've already been over both Plasmoid's site and bbtactics.

[adhansa]

I would have taken the Guard, not to always have him in the midst of thing, but as something to throw in those crucial times where i need it, when i need it.

One more thing for you to have as an option, and for your opponent to have to take into consideration. That is always a good thing. Especially when its something as usefull as guard.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Yep Guard.

[mrb3]

I'm a long time wood elf player (with a record 31 consecutive games without defeats in my tabletop league). Don't be fooled by other skills; Guard is the only double worth taking on a catcher.

Sure, Nerves of Steel looks fun and useful... it's deceptive. You'll rarely use it compared to guard.

Only downside... any wood elf Guard player always end up accumulating lots of injuries (sometimes even -ST without being retired). On the good side, it attracts lots of firepower from the opposite team, which can save a few blitzes on your Wardancers.

[Smeborg]

I also find Guard works well on a WE catcher.

[Heff]

Guard then leap. Then you have support for your ballhunter dancer

[el Superbeasto]

Thanks everyone.
I'll go with guard and see how he fares tonight against them nasty norse...

[el Superbeasto]

New question in top post.
Let me feed on your collective wisdom, please!

[El_Jairo]

I personally went with MB as the wardancers are most likely to be the blitzing player. But I can see guard work as well as you can leap it right where you want it to be.
But that would also mean that this WD might face more attrition in return as you need to get that guard out of the line to start blocking the line down.

Much would depend on the coming opposing teams. I would say Guard vs Bash and MB vs Dash.

The other WD would be SB of course, as it can put extra pressure on the opposing coach, as the ball can pop loose on any turn, unless he has ST4 Ball Carrier or sure hands.