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Strategy and Tactics - Bashy Pro Elves... Am I Nutz?
Khaine - Sep 26, 2005 - 11:07 AM
Post subject: Bashy Pro Elves... Am I Nutz?
I have been playing in a local league, and so far I have found the best defense with my pro elves is to be VERY offensive with them. No this doesn't include lack of showers and garlic and onion sammy's for their before game snacks. I setup as many blocks as I can take in a turn to my advantage, and knock down or push away as many players as I can. I was told by a high elf player that I should be dodging away as much as possible, which seems to be a common play style, but to me this seems almosy counter productive. The only way your going to get a decent amount of SPP spread through a team is with some casualties caused. Granted with pro elves the speed of the lineman and the agillity allows you to score with them as well, but I find it a bit tedious to get them down field when they should be doing their job blocking or exerting tackle zones... So far my Bashy Elves have won 3 games and playiong 2 speed teams and one abshy team have managed to give better then they got. Currently my Si caused vs received is 5-3 with 2 of my injuries being kills. I currently have the highest score ratio and casualty ratio. The teams in the league are
DE played them to a 3-2 victory with 4-1 casualties
Skaven 3-1 victory with 3-2 casualties
Dwarves 5-0 1-1 casualties
I have a Week off Next week then play
Orcs
Humans
High Elves
I am going to stick to my strategy and enhance it by choosing block and dodge where applicible. We only play each team once then do a multi round playoff tourney with single elimination. So far I have been able to do well. I'm just hoping my luck holds out, and their dice rolls keep sucking 
I knew those virgin sacrifices and offering to <insert diety here> would help. Plus apparently the pink dice have broken the curse of evil that the black dice had for me. Damned 
KarlLagerbottom - Sep 26, 2005 - 11:29 AM
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I think a balance between the two is probably the way to go...just keep in mind that you have played two speed teams so far. That has alot to do with the CAS sucess that you have had. You shouldn't engage as much when you play Dwarfs and Orcs...I'm not saying never throw blocks or engage the enemy...just don't do it as frequently as you would against Skaven and other elves.
Emberbreeze - Sep 27, 2005 - 04:10 AM
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This how I tend to play my dark elves, but they have AV8 to help them stay alive. with AV7 and no dodge or block you are going to get hurt more than you hurt others in the long run. If you luck holds until you have a good core of block or dodge players then you should do ok.
bareuf - Sep 27, 2005 - 04:17 AM
Post subject: Re: Bashy Pro Elves... Am I Nutz?
Khaine wrote:
I have been playing in a local league, and so far I have found the best defense with my pro elves is to be VERY offensive with them. No this doesn't include lack of showers and garlic and onion sammy's for their before game snacks.
LOL
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I setup as many blocks as I can take in a turn to my advantage, and knock down or push away as many players as I can.
you're gonna burn many RR this way...
you can try, but it's an hard way
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I was told by a high elf player that I should be dodging away as much as possible, which seems to be a common play style, but to me this seems almosy counter productive. The only way your going to get a decent amount of SPP spread through a team is with some casualties caused
tut tut tut, you should rely on skilled player to pass armor roll, mighty blow, piling on, I wouldn't bother comsuming skill slots for elves but to manage the ball
you simply ain't playing the team to its best level
of course you can have the surprise and that could win you some games 
but IMO with low armor you're bound to fail at last...
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Granted with pro elves the speed of the lineman and the agillity allows you to score with them as well
,
that's one of the advantages of elves in general
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but I find it a bit tedious to get them down field when they should be doing their job blocking or exerting tackle zones... So far my Bashy Elves have won 3 games and playiong 2 speed teams and one abshy team have managed to give better then they got. Currently my Si caused vs received is 5-3 with 2 of my injuries being kills. I currently have the highest score ratio and casualty ratio. The teams in the league are
DE played them to a 3-2 victory with 4-1 casualties
Skaven 3-1 victory with 3-2 casualties
Dwarves 5-0 1-1 casualties
a poor dwarf coach, maybe?
Quote:
I have a Week off Next week then play
Orcs
Humans
High Elves
go ahed stick to your strategy, I wish you a nice league
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I am going to stick to my strategy and enhance it by choosing block and dodge where applicible.
I suggest those I mentioned b4, you need to get through armor
Spazzfist - Sep 27, 2005 - 05:53 AM
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I tend to agree with you Khaine.
My experience is that if you keep maneuvering too much your opponent is eventually going to start wearing you down and then once he starts causing casualties and getting the numbers advantage on his side, it is a difficult battle for you thereon.
You are far less likely to go down when offensively blocking then if you are blocked. So let 'em have it! But what you didn;t mention (and I assume you do) is to make sure that you are not leaving yourself in tackle zones at the end of a turn. Only let him hit you once per turn, with a blitz.
There is a saying: "You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take". The same idea applies here. If you spend all your time dodging, you chances of causing casualties and maintaining a numbers advantage (or balanace) is nil. Too much maneuvering can be a deadly temptation for elf teams.
However, having said that I think in the long term development of the team, you should focus on their strength and magnify that, which is their speed and agility. Take a kick skill early to plant the ball deep, thereby reducing your opponent's numbers on the line as he is forced to make a deep cage. Depending on the number of Dwarf teams in the league, Dodge may not be the best of choices. Side Step is always a pain, and I hav found diving Tackle to be very useful. Jump Up is not always a popular choice for the AV7 players, but at least it will work to your strategy that it will allow your players to block when stansing wihtout having to declare a blitz.
Let us know how it turns out!
Spazz
Khaine - Sep 27, 2005 - 08:53 AM
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ACK I forgot to mention the entire league is only 7 games long. People decided they didn't want to play through the holiday season <counting I guess thanksgiving as a holiday to jump around>. So basically I have 7 games to "develop" my team. So far I have 2 blodgy blitzers, a catcher with block and dodge, 1 lineman with block, and 1 with a skill I need to roll. I just purchased a rookie catcher, and I have a thrower with block. <I feel that ball handling with AG 4 is easy enough without having to put a ball handling skill on an elf.> I like pro elves but after this league I think I will retire them for a team that has a bit more hitting power. While it is nice to be able to dodge out and have movement to setup my 2 dice blocks.
As for staying in tackle zones, I do tend to stay in tackle zones when I have setup a trap for a slower team. For example if I can get a dwarf in a possition where I can have a defensive assist and allow a 2d my way if his dwarves are out of possition then I will take the chance of a pow. Most of the time during my game with the dwarves though, after my series of blocks, the dwarves would end up spending most of their time standing back up or moving back into possition for blocks. I'll admit I probably just had great rolling games the last 2 weeks, but with 2 rerolls I have not had a problem with running out of rerolls too early in the half. I also find that since almost EVERYONE in the league has half the fan factor I have including the High Elf team <I believe they are FF 6 and I have ff 11 having rolled well enough to keep my FF with the win and cas.> I find that I'm usually getting either a reroll or some other decent kickoff result. <I have 2 blitzes an injury time 1 quick snap, and 2 pitch invasions.> I was very scared of the dwarves going into the game but seriously injuting one of his troll slayers in the first turn of the game, gave me the confidence to stick with my knock them down before they knock you down strategy. I do think that I will be trying to gather up either an ogre team or a lizardman team for the next Local league. I like the speed and toughness of the lizards, ubut the abillity to eventually field 11 str 5 ag 2 9 av monsters on defense is definately tempting. Anyway I feel like while my strategy isn't a common elven tactic it does make them alot of fun to play and AV7 isn't as bad as I thought it would be in reality. I thought I would have been put to the gorund by every team in the league by now, but apparently my elves have been into the dwarven spirits and armories to get their special av7 armor. Hopefully at this rate I will take the league and be able to walk away with a big smile on my face. I just hope my dice don't cool off waiting for the next time I play in two weeks.
dmchale - Sep 27, 2005 - 12:54 PM
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so you know, in case you dont pay attention to the Vault, the 2007 ogre team will only be able to field 6 ogres maximum... and with snotlings instead of goblins. I dont know if your league will move to the new ruleset once it becomes official, but if you buy 12 ogre minis now (not a cheap endeavor) you'll have 6 "useless" ogres down the line. Just thought I'd mention that if you didnt know and if you cared
good luck keeping up the bashing, I had a similar game with my high elves my last league where, with no tackle, i was *annhilating* my amazon opponent one game. It seemed all I could roll were pows. It's nice when it works, but for the most part I preferred the "dodge-away" strategy. I don't care how many players my opponent has on the pitch, and I know with elves you can be in serious trouble if the dice abandon you and start going your opponents' way. but again... good luck 
Khaine - Sep 27, 2005 - 06:20 PM
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Sooo are vault rules destined to be reveiwed for official? And why do they have the 0-12 ogre team listed? And are ogres going to get general access again?
GalakStarscraper - Sep 27, 2005 - 08:59 PM
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Khaine wrote:
1) Sooo are vault rules destined to be reveiwed for official?
2) And why do they have the 0-12 ogre team listed?
3) And are ogres going to get general access again?
1) Yes, BBRC review is in May of 2006. Rules are expected to become official in early 2007. You can see the new Ogre team for 2007 in this file:
http://www.specialist-games.com/assets/BBLRB_1.9.pdf
2) That is the LRB 4.0 which is the current official team until 2007.
3) No
Khaine - Sep 28, 2005 - 11:57 AM
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Thanks for the update Galak. I guess I never bothered actually figuring out exactly where the rules came from. I thought the vault was more of a cache of experimental rules. I didn't read the whole 1.9 rulebook but I saw more red then black so I guess the game is in for some updates in 2007.
skatingtortoise - Feb 13, 2006 - 08:16 AM
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having played pro elves in a league with a similar lineup to yours, i think it is definitely a good idea to put the boot in.
1. they probably wont expect it
2. its fun
3. its fun
but also, the team has the scope to play the passing and bashing game simultaneously. the excellent catchers are well up to the job of standing around in the opposition half on their own, and with skills like safe pass its an easy touchdown, especially if the catcher has dodge/block/sidestep
this leaves plenty of time for the linemen to focus their efforts on key players.
i recommend dirty player, and a mixe of fun skills such as dirty tackle, tackle, dump off, pass block, leap
+ma is the only stat increase that will usually be missed for a skill.
extra strength is a godsend!
Mephiston - Feb 27, 2006 - 03:07 PM
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GalakStarscraper wrote:
1) Yes, BBRC review is in May of 2006. Rules are expected to become official in early 2007. You can see the new Ogre team for 2007 in this file:
http://www.specialist-games.com/assets/BBLRB_1.9.pdf
Galak, thanks for this post 
I've not been following the PBBL threads but I like the changes I see. I'm guessing this is a port of PBBL 1.11 into LRB4?
We have just finished a league in my local GW but I feel the need to get another going with these rules to compare 