Wood Elf/Elves Tacticum

[El_Jairo]

So here are the skills I got.
I went for Tackle on one Liner because 5 out of 8 races I have to play have access to dodge with at least 4 positionals.

Tree: Grab
5 Liners: Tackle, Kick, Dodge, +AG and Dodge

I do like the fact that I can go Wrackle on 2nd skill to have another back-up sweeper. As I still have to buy 2nd WD, and Catchers.

I also like the AG 5 liner, as he can now act as a passer if needed. He needs dodge ASAP to allow him to dodge "through" lone opponents.

So next game I face Lizards with 4 Sauri, Krox and 6 Skinks. They still have to play their match, so barring injuries.
I have seen in Garion's playbook that he likes to spread his LoS 1 tile. I would disagree as I want to pin that Kroxi down. So I would keep the LoS closed and the grab tree just behind. If the Kroxi wants a free block it can't follow up, unless to face a free block of my Tree. Now that it has grab I can block liners free from it's tail.
I also expect him to take the free block with 2 sauri, leaving only 2 to screen for skinks. But if he is a good coach he will guard the ball with at least one Saurus.

Another thing I was pondering about was putting me 2 Dodge Line Elves on the LoS to. As his team lacks any block, they have a fair chance of standing next to a tree, even after a block or two. Not three, if my math is right them going down is just below 1/3rd.

On the other hand I do like to have them on the wings to be able to dodge through and start to screen off sauri from skinks. Since I have Kick now, I want to play a bit more aggressive to push for fast Defensive TD. On offence I would like to go one Skink hunt until I either have to score or I run out of skinks Luckily enough he now still has 6.

I don't know how many that will be after he finishes his game vs CD with 2BC 6 CD 3 Hobgob of 1 W/ Block and 2 TRR. My guess is that CD will win if they can enforce a block-fest. They do out-block the lizards by 7.

I might be giving away some inducements in our game as I sit at 1170 TV and the Lizards are now at 1010 TV without Apo.

[El_Jairo]

On another note I want to theorize about the MB WD, presuming he can live to see his second skill.
What would I want to take? Tackle, as there are plenty AV 7 Dodge players in the following matches. But this would mean he stays alive long enough.
What would I consider as a general tactical advantage? Frenzy.
With Blodge, Leap and MA 8 you will own one side-line, even against the more strength teams, this sounds as a good option as getting a push on that final 1db isn't that hard.
It also combines well with MB as you net more knock-downs equals more field clearance.
What I should take? I understand that WE only survive if they can get to the ball, so Strip Ball is a very useful thing for this.

My take on this is that tackle helps more in the general campaign as those bashy teams will develop a sure hands guy. And I think that WE can be hard for bashy teams to play against, once you can screen off different portions of their team. You need enough players to stand in those screens of course. So giving away 20k TV might not be the worst anyway.

I fear more the fast and agile teams as they rival my strengths so it comes down to outnumbering the opponent to gain the upper hand in a match. It is in these matches that Tackle can be worth a lot more than 20k TV, if played right and MB helps the odds in winning the "elf"bash. Keep in mind that 5 out of 8 opponents will have multiple AV7 Blodgers.
Just deny as many free blocks and but return the favour if they try to tie you down. If positioning allows of course.

What do you think the second normal skill should be for the MB Wardancer? And why.

[Pedda]

On another note I want to theorize about the MB WD, presuming he can live to see his second skill.
What would I want to take? Tackle, as there are plenty AV 7 Dodge players in the following matches. But this would mean he stays alive long enough.
What would I consider as a general tactical advantage? Frenzy.
With Blodge, Leap and MA 8 you will own one side-line, even against the more strength teams, this sounds as a good option as getting a push on that final 1db isn't that hard.
It also combines well with MB as you net more knock-downs equals more field clearance.
What I should take? I understand that WE only survive if they can get to the ball, so Strip Ball is a very useful thing for this.

My take on this is that tackle helps more in the general campaign as those bashy teams will develop a sure hands guy. And I think that WE can be hard for bashy teams to play against, once you can screen off different portions of their team. You need enough players to stand in those screens of course. So giving away 20k TV might not be the worst anyway.

I fear more the fast and agile teams as they rival my strengths so it comes down to outnumbering the opponent to gain the upper hand in a match. It is in these matches that Tackle can be worth a lot more than 20k TV, if played right and MB helps the odds in winning the "elf"bash. Keep in mind that 5 out of 8 opponents will have multiple AV7 Blodgers.
Just deny as many free blocks and but return the favour if they try to tie you down. If positioning allows of course.

What do you think the second normal skill should be for the MB Wardancer? And why.

I'd go with tackle, because you need to get people down in order to use your MB.
Frenzy is an option, but you lack guard for the second 2d block on the follow up.

I'd then go strip ball on the other WD.

[mattgslater]

Tackle. You need 2 Tackle as fast as possible and this one comes with Block, Mighty Blow, and superior mobility. Let the other Dancer become your ballhawk.

[El_Jairo]

Thanks for the advice guys.

I was uncertain about it since I see most common build having both WD SB. I thought it is a good idea since those buggers only come with AV7 and have most of the opponent attention.

I guess I should be trying to keep them save behind a screen whenever possible. Going all balls out too soon will see them too fast of the pitch.

[El_Jairo]

Hey TFF guys,

I would like to have your advice on my upcoming match vs Lizards.

For defence I was planning on central LoS tight together with Tree right behind. This to lure his Kroxi and 2 sauri to the middle.
Following turn I would mark the sauri if he followed up with his Kroxi. To start a blocking trade between the tree and the Kroxi or saurus.

My question is: do you best mark with a Dodge liner or do you advice to use non-skill line Elves for these jobs. I was thinking that the chance of going down vs a non-block Saurus are halved by the Dodge skill. And not going down improves survivability. It would also help to dodge away, even with the Kroxi tail.

On offence I prefer a running play and try to knock out as many Skinks in the process but I don't want to stall too long, as I have invested in a Kicker.
Or would you advice to put some possible receivers deep to split the Saurus attention over the pitch. Since once they are marked they tend to prefer the block over an AG1 dodge. So it would give me the better positioning, in trade for a stun or KO. The following turns I can return the favour as Skinks will be exposed.

[El_Jairo]

As I'm hogging this topic, let me continue with telling you how my match vs the Lizards went.

So the Lizards team comprised of Kroxi, 5 Sauri and 6 skinks (of which 1 has SS).

He won the toss and let me receive first. So much for my plan to make the most of my new Kick skill. I can understand enough as the match started in the pouring rain.

First turn I fail to hurt a skink and I can't mark his Kroxi as it is well screened. I set up positions for running down the right flank. And mark a Skink with my tackle Liner.
His turn 1 he surprises me with making a 3D blitz with the Kroxi on my Tackler => BH.

So that is how Nuffle shows me how it feels to take early match injuries.
Following turns I suffer 2 more KO's but I my opponent lets a Liner free in the left wide-zone at the LoS while the whole right flank is seeing most action.
As it is already Turn 4 I decided to make a push for it as I can mark all players or can screen them off. So I hand off to the Liner and move him 7 up the flank.

Again a blitz with the Kroxi lets him mark the Ball Carrier and he puts a skink on him on the deep side.
"Easy peazy" I think. I blitz the skink out of the way, only a 3+ dodge is standing in my way to score. Failed with RR but the ball ends up in the WD's hands. Fair enough I think.
Next turn the clear pow does come up in my opponents blitz. Sad things. I loose the blocking battle for the ball as I'm about 3 men down and the Lizards manage to score.

Sadly during the next two kick-offs the KO liners decide to stay unconscious, by second half I'm 4 men down and the weather changes to fine.

Second half starts bad as my WD his BH, I apoth because I still want to have a chance to equalize. Ironically enough Cyanide makes the Apoth RR into a death :p Looking back, this might have saved me from a RIP.

The numeric advantage demands its toll and I can't prevent the second score. So "Game Over" I would think.

On my receiving drive KO's come back and I manage to score a passing combination over the AG5 liner and the WD. The path stayed clear as a skinks finally failed a GFI or dodge.

We still had a chance at equalizing last turn as I made an effort to maximize the pressure and my opponent runs the ball with a skink down the left flank.
I manage to make the blitz easily and even manage to down him. Sadly the ball is catched by liner who was negating the assist.
Very sad as I had multiple liner lined up for the TD and my AG5 liner was close to get the ball to one of them.

Ok, all-in-all a good game. The final score was more tight than the firs half made me fear.

EDIT: Nuffle really wanted to learn the lessons. MVP went to Tackle Liner "Tree Hugger" for being CASed during the first turn by Kroxi.
I also just made enough gc for the second WD, so no journeyman and no cash lying about. /EDIT.

For me main game deciders were:
1) Kroxi making his crucial blitz actions. The opponent took some risks but got high rewards from them. I still wonder what the game would have been if my Tackler so more action than 1 turn.
2) In hindsight I believe I could have forced GFI's on the Kroxi when he blitzed to mark my breakthrough liner. Sure 2 GFI only have 33% of failure but now he only needed a push on 2D to make it happen.
I remember I wasn't willing to risk my last TRR because I felt I might need it if things went wrong with the liner.
3) I think I need to review my set-up vs Lizards. Maybe I need to set up a little deeper defensively but I wanted to be able to pressure his backfield, to discourage him to stall too much.
4) Second half my Tree was knocked over and got up just one turn to late. Otherwise he could have marked important Sauri.
5) My opponent was lucky enough with his blocks as he didn't need any TRR for blocking first half. I did expect more things to go wrong with so little blocking skills. He just was lucky that the both down only appeared late in his turns.

Main point is that I don't need to be too hard on myself as I did had some decent chances to score first half but some crucial rolls decided otherwise. EDIT: rethinking this I did made the error of not pushing completely and GFI when I broke through with the ball. If I made both, I would have been out of range of the Kroxi as the score would have been sure. So the most important is to switch from risk-averse to maximize reward chances. As I remember I still had one TRR left so chance for turnover where small (about 5,5%) /EDIT
I was also surprised on how resilient those skinks were, even with MB on the WD I only succeeded in 2 BH over the whole game.

I didn't make the most out of Grab on my tree and I have the feeling that vs so many ST4 players I could have used guard to make blocking more feasible. On the other hand knocking AV9 guys down wouldn't have resulted in many injuries but on the other hand, keeping opposing player down lets you move to better positions.

I forgot to look at my winnings so I don't know if I have to wait another game for my second WD. I did feel the lack of speed and options this game as my opponent was able to avoid my tree with his Kroxi. I don't think that blitzing with a tree is really beneficial to WE, certainly vs AV9 it's not worth it if you can blitz a skink.

[mzukerman]

Just offering a different strategy, not saying yours is wrong. I have played woodies both on table top and currently on Cyanide (8-1, 1st place).

My philosophy is to score quickly, yes - even against the grinder teams. mostly because they can't usually do anything about my defense unless they whittle down my team in the injury box (which happened in the loss).

Offense: Everyone on the line, thrower (have to have a thrower for this to work) in the background. I arrange everyone on the line so that I give assists to the blocking elves and keep the wardancers (I have 2) free to blitz a hole and then flood the other side either through the hole or with leapers. I spread at least 3, preferably 4 or 5 receivers downpitch. They can only blitz one and mark the rest. Whoever they don't put in a sandwich ( 0X0 ) I use to dodge and blitz someone free, the thrower comes down pitch and tosses it. Usually I'm good with just the passing reroll. If the kick goes really deep and the thrower has too long to throw, I will usually stage a couple of others to take the intermediary pass and they hand off to the eventual receiver I've blitzed free. Usually a 2 turn score.

Defense: Movable fence and leaping wardancers. I usually throw wrestle and/or strip ball on my wardancers. I know the wrestle makes them foul bait and yes that has bitten me a couple of times. My linemen all get dodge as their first skill. Then I disengage from everyone. No markups. If I really want to hit someone, my opponent is usually more than happy to mark me up and I don't have to try too hard. I fence off the opponents with a double layer, making the blitz less effective (you do need numbers for this). I can usually stall the offense that way. When they get desperate, or I do see an opportunity for my wardancer, I mark up a couple of cager points to cancel out the assists and leap in their with a wardancer to get the ball free. Usually if I've marked up the cage, the ball will bounce around until it ends up outside the cage and then my speed takes over. Note that the weakness of this strategy is against guard. If there is a ton of it, then I just go for the two dice uphill with a leaping wrestling strip baller.

You need a few more skills on the wardancers to make this work, but since everyone is starting at your level, you shouldn't be facing teams that outskill you.

Oh and one other thing. Embrace your journeymen! Elves that miss games aren't a huge deal because now you've got line fodder. I usually deal with the journeymen until I can add catchers to my squad instead of linemen. They are usually the last ones to put on the roster (other than the treeman) since they are the easiest to skill up.

I hope this helps with offering a different strategy than you are playing. Not saying I'm right, just different.

[El_Jairo]

Thanks mzukerman for strategy.
It does remind me of how I used to play my DE before they got the runner.

In retrospect it is the best way to play and only give your opponent the blitz block.
In this case I was too afraid of the Lizard speed but you are right that it is most of the time possible to get the 2TT.

In this case I should have blitzed the Saurus in the wide zone and up to 4 players deep in a wide screen of 2 squares inter-distance.
While leaving multiple relay station players I could hand-off to. That way the Lizards could end up in a split formation trying to mark every one.

Thanks again for showing me the classic Elf play.^_^

[El_Jairo]

Moving past the loss in last game I take away some lessons:
1) Don't give away free blocks, certainly not on the safety
2) Know when to move to risk - higher reward from the risk aversion mode
3) Wood Elves should play games as the agility team and not aim for blocking injuries, if it happens, all the better but I think I need to rely on push-out to ensure players leaving the pitch. Block war isn't our forte.

So next game we are up against a Chaos Team with 4 CW (one has block, one -AV) 7 beastmen (one with skill) and 180k in the bank and no apoth. So I'm expecting to see a Minotaur in our game.

My strategy is to start playing more classic wood elf style: on defence try to set up screen between the ball and the majority of his players. So this mean asymmetrical set-up and kick the opposite corner.
On offence create a hole and flood their backfield with multiple receivers.
In general avoiding contact with the opposition at the end of my turn, unless the crucial ones, where I want to prevent a blitz to threaten my Ball Carrier.
I'm still planning on having my AG5 Liner on ball duty as he lacks protections skills to be a perfect relay station at the LoS. I want him to have Dodge and Block before this (if he lives that long, that is).

In general I only want to mark players with my Tree, preferably AV8 target, to maximise my chances of knocking the player off the pitch. Most of those players have ST3 so getting 3D blocks should be always the goal. I thought the Tree can handle multiple targets but I want to limit the chances of him going down.

Hopefully I can skill up the new Dancer this match so I can add Strip Ball to my toolbox.

I'm a little concerned about my Tackle liner, he doesn't have a target for the coming 3 games (bar double skills on the opposition) but he sits at 12 SPP so maybe he can make it to Wrestle during these 3 games.

My purchase plan is simple: 3 catchers followed by a thrower for "leader" access. Barring any career-ending injuries on the positionals of course.

Next skills to get on my Liners are Wrestle and Dodge as next games are vs Orcs followed by Chaos Dwarves.
So I'm afraid I should get used to playing outnumbered

[El_Jairo]

So I got to play my game vs the Chaos team "Rode Oogjes" (you can google that ) and they turned out to be blessed with +ST on a Beastman and second skill on the team.

Short version: I got lucky that he failed one critical blitz (of course with no block) on my MB WD. I think that mainly targeting my WD's was his mistake in second half because it took about 10 blocks to take her down, Misstress of Life.
She performed well with a CAS and a KO I believe. The Tree of Life managed to KO the AV8 CW, another mistake to put him on the LoS, that was what I was hoping for.
All in all we were able to match Chaos for the Bash so a 0-2 win. I managed to cash in on the defense by not overcommitting myself in blitzing his ST 4 Beastman BC and just blitzed the Beastmen in the screen. Which delivered KO 4 - 4, the Tree also succeeding in KO-ing the Mino in second half and CAS 1 - 2, RIP 1 - 1.
Yes that is right, the apoth failed on our RIP AG5 Line Elf, sadly Tree Watcher will be no more. I think the Mino got him but that might be based on his impressive start of the game with 2 consecutive KO's.
I did manage to land a skill on MB WD and a Rookie Liner. Only 1 TD on the second WD.

So next up are my friend's Orc which also lost their thrower to the Lizzie who bested me 2-1.
Their Roster most likely now at 105TV
Troll
BoB Block
3x BoB
Tackle Blitzer "Grimber" who already has 2 Kills.
+Skill Blitzer (I would presume Guard or MB)
2x Blitzer
+Skill Liner
So 10 blokes, no apoth and only 2 TRR

My Roster should be 129TV So I would give 140k inducements.
Grab Tree
MB WD +SKILL
WD
7 Liners 2x Dodge, Kick, Tackle, +SKILL
Also 10 Blokes, Apoth and only 2 TRR

So my plan is to take Wrestle on the Liner but for the MB WD I'm unsure. I want to pick Frenzy but it seems the high risk choice, certainly with 2TRR. Another fact is that the CD I'm playing after the Orcs managed a Dodge BC and already has 2 guard dwarves, so I was thinking OR defensive Tackle can be important but Frenzy has more general use. Vs this Orcs I might not need frenzy but it would allows me to put the heat on his blitzers when they try to make the brake.
I'm used to playing DE so a MA8 leaping Frenzy MB dude does sounds like the perfect scalpel blade. Even if I don't have tackle it would free up one side-line nicely as there aren't many SF players yet and I already played skinks and I don't think many elves make it to 3 skills, maybe DE Blitzers might go Blodge SS, which advocates for Tackle.
So basically it feels the I have to choose between vs Dash or vs Bash.
Looking at my calendar: 3x Bash, 2x Dash, B,D
So Orcs, CD, Undead, WE, DE, Undead and finally, my nemesis Skaven.
I don't know if my MB WD is going to survive so I'm inclined towards frenzy to help out vs 3 next bash match-ups. With frenzy I might able to peel of one guy and 'guide' him to the stands. If the Bash opponent should park the cage in the centre I will hope that my armour holds out to screen him out into a desperate move.
Now if the MB Frenzy WD survives, that would be by helping his team getting those pitch removal on the opponent.
After all if I don't want the Frenzy blitz I have the second WD and a wrestle Liner to make a normal blitz.
If all stars line up, I might get a Tackle, MB, Frenzy WD to take special care of the GR's. Although Frenzy kind of wants SS. But than again, SS tends to make me cocky on Witches and they would get KO's because they will get hit, even with SS And leap is a nice safety rocket when you end up prone, next to the side-line.
So I would aim for a total killer to be ready by the last 4 games as he should have plenty AV7 Blodgers targets then.
Rethinking the calendar, that leaves him 3-6 matches to gain 15SPP, so I might want to feed her some TDs to speed up the process once all Liners and new Catchers have a skill.

What would you do?

[El_Jairo]

I have been thinking about a play book for my team, so here is my first vs Slower Bashers, if I still have 11 players.

Play Link
Orcs in Blue: Tr=Troll and so on
LD Liner Dodge...
Does this look any good?

[El_Jairo]

So I know the skills we have for the game vs the orcs.
I have frenzy on the MB WD, wrestle on the liner ignoring a 10 result and he has 2 tackle and block on the liner.
I will be giving away 200 know inducements.

My plan is to rush the Ball if I can and otherwise go for the frenzy blitz on a blitzer. Preferably on the tackle ones. I think I should mark the tackle blitzers if I can keep them in a bad position by it. I am not sure because in general I don't want to give him blocks in general because we both have just 11 players. He only has MB on the troll so I hope I can keep the numbers almost equal with some well placed chain pushing for a crowd surf.

What is the best tactical plan in your opinion?

[El_Jairo]

Update

Our Game vs the Orcs was Epic!
I won't go into all details but these where the major events.
I kicked first, and did manage to surf the skilled Lino for RIP on T1/1.
We were able to stop the Orcs' advance but not cash in for a TD and in the end they did manage to score.
Mainly because all fouling was overlooked by the Ref (Might due to the fact that we played in a Dwarven stadium with lot's of beer?)

I Apoth late BH on MB WD (Misstress of Life).

Which payed off in second half.
As I was players down I planned to stall for 1-1 draw. This went quite good until I forgot to put the ball in safety and it got tackled to the ground. The Misstress of Life turned the block-fest for the loose ball around: 1D Frenzy into 2D against and of course the defender was downed and KO'd!
Little later with some effect on the pass we managed the equalising TD in Turn 18/17.
Last turn was memorable as first there was a pitch invasion, leaving no standing elves in reach of orcs and the Ref (snake eyes) did spot the gang-foul on the Tree of Life, but was persuaded to drink some more beer with the bribe

All in all I'm happy with the result. My positioning game wasn't great and I did have some crucial luck rolls in making the equaliser possible. We only got a niggling on the Kick lineElf, so the match up vs the CD's will be a bit more difficult.

Another LineElf gained Tackle (the CD's sport a Dodge BC and all following games include AV7 dodgers) and bought the first catcher.
Sadly our second WD didn't manage to get her first skill because she saw most of the time astroganite and orc boots. Maybe her name has something to do with it: "B!tch of Life"

[El_Jairo]

So my game vs the Chaos Dwarves didn't went so well. Ended in 0-1 but I only got 2 CAS in sadly a smashed ankle on the Rookie WD, I think she sits on 3 SPP.
Maybe I should laugh about the B!tch of Life and encourage her to step her game up.

My dilemma is to keep the -MA WD or not. We still got 5 games but I only have 40k gp in the bank. So I rather keep adding catchers so they can help out vs Skaven in my last regular match.

I'm sorely missing the Strip ball at this point.

My next opponent is Undead and I'll be only giving away 70kgp in inducements unless he decides to do something with his 120k banked. He sits on 12 players, all positionals and 4 zombies, 3 TRR. 2x Guard on Mummy and Wight, Gouls with Sure Hands, AG +1 and Block. No skills on the zombies.

I'm happy that I have developed my linemen: 2x Tackle, 2x Dodge, Kick (niggling) and Wrestle.
Further I have the Tree (grab), WD MB Frenzy and rookie catcher at my disposal and 2 Loners as fodder.

I hope I can keep the mummies busy for a turn or two and not have the loners die, then they could dodge to just screen those mummies off the action. But that is of course many ifs.
The other plan I have is to attack the Guard mummy right away with the Tree. Try to keep it down while not giving away blocks by the second mummy.

My plan is rather easy: try to hurt the ghouls, as only one has blodge, they offer a fair chance of taking out speed of the team. So expect those ghouls to be screened by zombies. This means I want to set up so I get a shot at surfing those zombies. Even it fails in a knock-down, the zombie will be well out position, unless they can move their whole cage down that side. Which can be blocked by the Tree and loner speed bumps and the rest of the team screens of the flanks.
I would be happy to frenzy MB, blitz off the guard off a ghoul, to follow up with tackle marking and zoning out assists. If you get to get to the frenzy block, the guard can't simply stand up to help the ghoul in block/blitzing the tackle liner off him. Unless he is the block ghoul...

Ok, many options to consider for tomorrow but my main focus will be to keep my screen intact and stacked for maximum effect.

Wish me luck as my game is tomorrow evening.