Coach_Yriel
Joined: Aug 11, 2008
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 Posted:
Sep 11, 2008 - 18:16 |
 
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Hi folks,
Brand new to FUMMBL, and I've played 10 games of BB tabletop (LRB5 though). Coming in with that awe that you only get when you're truly...a newb. 
So, I've built a few teams but have only played 1.5 games in Academy (the 0.5 was an abandoned game against another new player who was really cool but got disconnected...). Anyway- my first game:
http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=match&id=2339612
Sucks that I lost my catcher, but my own fault being so close to the sidelines. Still- I had to play it more gutsy than I normally would have to on the tabletop, and gambling paid off. So I call it luck and nothing to be proud of skillwise.
So- onto the questions:
1) Why does my favorite team, High Elves, seem fairly uncommon around here? I see tons of Woodies, Skaven, Chaos, Undead, and Orcs- but HE's seem less common than Pro-Elves, Amazons, and Ogres. Why?
2) Critique of last game. I'm a big boy- lemme have it!
3) Team development- I know most are saying to start with only lineman, but I love those Dragon Warriors, and Lion Warriors are fun too (though mine is now a zombie lol). Did I do okay with the build? What should I be looking forward to doing with the team?
Thanks in advance for any help/insight you can offer! |
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JanMattys
Joined: Feb 29, 2004
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Sep 11, 2008 - 18:21 |
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1) high elves are certainly less popular than darkies and woodies, for different reasons. My elf team is a high elf one, but you see many darkies and woodies around. Dunno why. I'm a human player, the pointy-eared scum isn't really my thing. Ask some other elf-scum. 
2) I'll pass that, don't have time now. Maybe later, at home.
3) the only real advice I can give is: if you want some long term thing, start with FF 9, apo and linos. Linos can play ball, and have a completion on every lino means you can have a skill with mvps easily. Mixing block and dodge at the beginning is great. Then you can start playing with the positionals, but I'd advise you to have 3 rrs first. Frontloaded teams have a tendency to get the attention of Nuffle, get four permanent injuries in the first game, and get retired. Think long term and you'll be fine. Team will grow powerful soon enough, if it's elves. |
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SillySod
Joined: Oct 10, 2006
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Sep 11, 2008 - 18:32 |
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A popular setup for high elves and dark elves is to start with:
2 blitzers (dragon warriors)
9 linemen
2 RR
8 FF
Dark elves are closest to high elves but tend to be more poular because they start with better skilled positionals and have slightly more armour on average. The better skilled positionals dont make the team better but they do make it easier to play - taking advantage of skills like block and doge are inherantly easier than using slightly more move. I dont think theres a "right" team, it just depends on your preferences |
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Putting the "eh?" back into Sexeh.
"There are those to whom knowledge is a shield. There are those to whom it is a weapon. Neither view is balanced." |
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JanMattys
Joined: Feb 29, 2004
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Sep 11, 2008 - 18:40 |
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Throwers on a elf team from the start are a luxury. The prevent linos from getting the first spps, which is bad for team's early development, and, and can be safely bought later imho. |
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SillySod
Joined: Oct 10, 2006
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Sep 11, 2008 - 18:52 |
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I dunno, elf throwers can be pretty nice for a new player. A good variation on the all linemen team is:
10 linemen
1 thrower (phoenix warrior)
3 RR
8 FF
The thrower tends to get its first skill within two games (which is nice) and can really help a new players offence. |
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Putting the "eh?" back into Sexeh.
"There are those to whom knowledge is a shield. There are those to whom it is a weapon. Neither view is balanced." |
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Macavity
Joined: Nov 23, 2004
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Sep 11, 2008 - 19:12 |
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You may also want to consider that it's a bit early to HAVE a favourite team.  |
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When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. -C.S. Lewis |
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Coach_Yriel
Joined: Aug 11, 2008
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Sep 11, 2008 - 19:26 |
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Hehe yeah- but I have played 40K and Fantasy for years now- always been a fan of the arrogant High Elves |
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aerofool
Joined: Jun 11, 2008
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Sep 11, 2008 - 20:07 |
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Welcome to FUMBBL! If you ever find yourself in the Academy part of the IRC chat, drop me a line!
Here's the tips I can lend for now..
#1 Stay in academy play as long as you can! You will learn the basics and strategies that work over time. Winning there is easier for most players there are new, like yourself. Plus your CR is spared a bit until you get the feel of the game and format.
#2 Be patient!! You will lose games, and players both in glorious and in humiliating manners. Through these times, you need to stick with your team and see what you can recover from it before trashing it into the retirement bin.
#3 Spectate games and ask questions to more experienced coaches, in game and out.
#4 Try diff things! Try diff rosters and races. The opportunity to see things from another point of view will help you deal with your opponents more.
Now onto your questions...
- High Elves are rare. They are not intended to bash as well as the DE. They don't have the speed and finesse of the WE. I'm sure the short skirts on the models are not helping either. The fact is that most FUMBBL gamers prefer either the "Ground and Pound" or "Elfball" methods of play. They really cannot hold up long enough to be effective in a "G&P" game, and the WE do the "Elfball" so much better! There may not be any real answer to this question, but this should be a start.
-You did well in your game. A few rookie mistakes were made and in some cases you suffered from those mistakes. Just keep playing!
-Elves of any sort are expensive. To keep the gold coming in, a high FF is crucial. This means sacrificing a few positionals and working with a lineelf-heavy roster. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The lineelfs need skills almost more than any other player on your team to be adequate support for the positionals. Once you get DW and LW on your team, they will make it harder for your lineelfs to get those critical SPP for skills. The DW and LW are what we call SPP hogs, meaning they tend to get all the SPP leaving your lineelfs empty handed. First purchase, if you didn't start with one, is an apothecary. In 2 more games, you should have enough for either a DW or RR. Slowly get your max # of DW and around 4 RR before getting your first PW. Once you get here, load up your team with LW's. Don't forget to replace niggled and dead players when you can! |
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Coach_Yriel
Joined: Aug 11, 2008
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Sep 16, 2008 - 00:26 |
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Wow- thanks for the feedback aerofool. I believe you are giving sound advice.
I think I've been following your advice- I spectate games (particularly all kinds of elf games), have built and played some different teams, and am working skills on linemen and slowly adding positionals.
This has led me to building this team:
http://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=team&op=view&team_id=493773
The team is 'starting' to feel a little more able now, and here are just some random observations regarding High Elves:
It seems like nearly every other roster out there gains positional or 'specialized' players out of the gate (maybe not as much for other elf teams, but their positionals seem to come in earlier than HE too). This means while you are spending the time to develop linemen, other starting rosters are going to be able to exploit all other sorts of advantages over your team. So against an Orc team that buys a lot of blitzers and black orc blockers- they'll start off with some very big advantages- other rosters like Dwarves can do well just for having tackle on nearly everyone, or Norse who can buy a few blitzers with 3 skills out of the gate and throw away expendable linemen with immediate Block skills.
To me that means expect to lose a lot of games early. Maybe it's just me or my rotten luck at ballhandling, but out of the gate HE's seem like the most vanilla team at the onset, as without positionals the team is too slow to play elfball, and too soft for a decent ground game (this is even more true in Proelves).
I'm wondering where the team power really peaks. From the sounds of the Strategy guide and my experience, the High Elves have a slow, rough start, and even after they start gaining skills they still feel a bit underpowered as teams who have had a head start with cheaper positionals have gained even more skills, and so at equivalent TR of ~150 the team still feels a bit underpowered. It almost feels like I won't really see a powerful lineup against peers until I'm around TR180 or higher. Is this normal?
Finally- a word about luck. I play some tabletop BB, and what I love about Elf teams is the relative ease of ballhandling and dodging at AG4- this normally means 2+ for things like an un-contested ball, a dodge into an open space, or a both ends of a quick pass. I've never considered myself a luckily person with dice, but 2+ has been fairly reliable for me and actual dice (I still roll 2's normally). But on Javabowl my luck is crazy, crazy low- I've had 21% luck for nearly an entire half one game, and most of my opponents finish 10 or more % higher than me for the game. I fail more 2+ rerolls in a single Javabowl game than I ever had playing tabletop BB. Am I just hated by Nuffle?
Anyway- I hope this doesn't come off as whiney. Fact is I still love the game, and my concerns about being underpowered are easily squelched by anyone who plays a halfling team or something more specialized. I really do love this game, just looking for some feedback from the vets. |
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Kryten
Joined: Sep 02, 2003
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Take dodge first on some (or all) of your linemen. Dodge gives you the mobility to exploit your agility properly, and allows you to set up 2 dice blocks more easily. |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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Sep 16, 2008 - 09:51 |
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| Coach_Yriel wrote: | | I'm wondering where the team power really peaks. From the sounds of the Strategy guide and my experience, the High Elves have a slow, rough start, and even after they start gaining skills they still feel a bit underpowered as teams who have had a head start with cheaper positionals have gained even more skills, and so at equivalent TR of ~150 the team still feels a bit underpowered. It almost feels like I won't really see a powerful lineup against peers until I'm around TR180 or higher. Is this normal? |
Yes.
You can get round this a bit by picking Dodge first skill early on. When most teams have one or no Tackle and many seriously lack Block, Dodge is a very powerful choice. For longer term development, it may not be the best choice, but if I was starting my first team I might just go for Dodge on everyone.
| Quote: | | Am I just hated by Nuffle? |
No more than everyone else is.
We perceive dice rolls very differently in the client than on tabletop. On tabletop, even the easiest roll is a matter of tension as the dice are in the air. In the client, a lot of easy things seem to happen automatically most of the time, and we may not even think about or notice the successes - so it can feel like a betrayal when suddenly there's a failure.
I would suggest that: you take a look at a few past games and try to make a rough count of how many 2+ rolls you attempted, including dodges, pick-ups, passing and catching (also GFIs - are you trying to GFI too much?), etc (I'd estimate it would be over 50); then consider how many team and skill re-rolls you've got, also think about how often you're using team re-rolls on things which aren't failures (eg, re-rolling pushes to try and knock a ball-carrier down); then you should be able to make an estimate of how many failures you should expect per game - add 50% on to this value (on the assumption of bad luck) and keep in mind when you're playing that you have to expect this much to go wrong. |
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zakatan
Joined: May 17, 2008
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Sep 16, 2008 - 13:31 |
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Concerning your luck I have to say that you might not have been lucky with your ball handling, but your injury rolls aren't bad at all. Only 3 retired players in 9 games (2 dead and 1 nig) is very low, specially if you compare with my he team. Guess your apo worked fine and most of the SI were just miss games.
I haven't managed to line up 11 players since the first game, peaking 7 in one game ^_^
Nuffle shows in different ways to every player |
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Melmoth
Joined: May 05, 2004
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Sep 16, 2008 - 13:47 |
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HE are less popular then DE and WE thats true. Dont know why as they are at the same level. I would start em with 11 Lino, 3 RR and FF 8 or 11 Lino, 2 RR, Apo and FF 8 if you want to play em in a long running league. Cheers and Good luck, keep on playing HE;-) |
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Laviak
Joined: Jul 19, 2004
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Sep 16, 2008 - 14:26 |
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I think high elves are less popular because they're in the middle. if you want a fast elf team, you'll likely go with wood elves, if you want a "tough" elf team, you'll go with darkies. Both dark and wood elves also have somewhat unique positionals - skills and stats wise, high elves just seem a bit boring (in the long run though they're actually a pretty good team). |
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We Fink Wer Orks
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Help save blood bowl, foul an elf today!. |
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nin
Joined: May 27, 2005
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Sep 16, 2008 - 14:47 |
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Dark Elves have 4 amazing blitzers, High just 2, those blitzers are some of the best players in BloodBowl
DE movement 7 positionals seem to be enougth for most people, those that want faster players can go WE or Skaven
I like Lion Warriors more than Witches, but rookie LW are not sound while Witches can crowdpush, and that's great fun for everibody
An alternative to Linemen + 2-3 RRs is Linemen + Positionals and just 1 RR. I like this on WE because WD and Catcher have in-build RRs for most things, but HE don't have Dodge at first |
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