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Isha Starting Roster & Tactics

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Overview
Isha are one of the most unique Secret League Elf rosters. At first Regeneration stands out as the team's unique selling point, however there are other aspects to the roster that gives them their own unique flavour.

This roster can feature up to 9 starting players with Side Step, including the big guy, which puts them on par with almost any team for positional control of the field. That said - even the non-Stunty Side Step players in this roster are squishy so they can’t base opposing players up as frequently as players like Water/Earth Elemental or Flesh Golems.

They’ve also got a passing game that comes from their Linemen, so you will be able to effectively move the ball from one end of the pitch to the other, re-living the days of old Elves where handing the ball off to a Lineman and have them perform a Pass action to another Elf is a valid tactic rather than a desperation play.

Finally they are the only elf team with a Stunty positional which opens up unique, screening and cage breaking options on defence, and the ability to penetrate opposing screens on offence.

But when it comes down to it, this is an Elf squad, and an expensive one at that, although you will have Blodge Side Steppers, you will also have plenty of deaths even though its only a 1 in 30 chance on the injury table now thanks to Regeneration.

Strengths

• High amount of starting Side Step
• Regeneration
• Top tier passing game
• Great skill progression options

Weaknesses

• Low Armour
• Very expensive players
• Slow for an Elf team
• Missing key starting skills

Isha Strategy
Your team is expensive so learning to manage your treasury early is key to sustained success for the team. While Isha have good pitch control, the team don’t take hits well and at times rely on Regeneration working to stay in contention in the late game, or you will be forced to take big risks as your numbers dwindle.

Naiad

• Build 1: Control
• Skill Priority: Dodge, Block, Tackle, Diving Tackle, Fend

• Build 2: Sacker
• Skill Priority: Dodge, Wrestle, Tackle, Strip Ball, Jump Up

• Build 3: Scorer
• Skill Priority: Dodge, Block, +MA, +MA, Sprint

The Naiad will likely be the stars of your team. They are Elf Union Blitzers that trade Block for Regeneration and cost 10k cheaper. Dodge is going to generally be your best first skill choice to allow them to reposition and synergize with Side Step well. The next will depend on their role, and is typically selected based on your teams needs at the time.

Control Naiads look to set up screens and generally want to stay upright and limit opposition movement. So Block, Tackle and Diving Tackle all seek to limit opponent mobility. These are your cage corners, your front portion of your screens, and the ones tagging potential receivers or the ball carrier.

Sacker Naiad take the classic Wrackle combo to dramatically improve the likelihood of sacking the ball carrier. As a S3 team, you will often have to take a one die sack, so giving yourself a 50% chance of getting the ball free is important. Strip ball can be taken earlier if your league does not feature much Sure Hands. Jump up combines well with both Wrestle and the fact you will likely be hit on the following turn.

Scorer: The Naiad’s MA7 isn’t stellar but it does mean you can build to MA9 if they live long enough and become a reliable one turner (at least as reliable as possible). When you combine that with Juggernaut on the Great Sylph and the control playstyle of the Isha defence, you can steal some 2-1 wins with a turn 8 OTTD!

Spites

• Primary Skills (Randoms only): Diving Tackle, Sneaky Git

Spites are another Isha peculiarity. No other elf team has access to a Stunty positional. Even though they are ST1, Spites make solid low TV linemen. The enemy team will either need to commit players with skills (Block/Tackle) to hitting them or need to roll POWs on the line and it prevents your expensive players from taking those hits. At higher TV they can be used to tie up keep enemy players or harass the enemy ball carrier, until they inevitably die. They don’t have Regeneration, and you don’t have and Apothecary so I do not recommend making a super spite, but they can carry the ball decently well at MA6 AG3+ in a pinch. The two skills listed are the only ones worth keeping, if you randomly roll something else, I recommend firing and hiring a rookie, if you have the gold available.

Great Sylph

• Build 1: Blodgestep
• Skill priority: Block, Dodge, Grab, Guard, +AV

• Build 2: Guard
• Skill priority: Guard, Juggernaut, Grab, Brawler, Pro

The Great Sylph is an interesting players. None of the official elf rosters have a mobile Big Guy so it certainly adds functionality as a blitzing players or a mobile Guard, but it is heavily held back from that second role by having a debilitating negatrait. Unchanneled Fury plus AV9+ means the Sylph will struggle to move around the field without using your precious Blitz and will equally struggle in sustained combat. Regeneration helps keep her coming back, but losing a 160k player for a drive is never fun. There are a few builds depending on the niche you want.

Blodgestep: This build aims to mitigate the Unchanneled Fury requirements and create a tough roadblock for your opponent to deal with. By taking Block and Dodge, at S5 the Sylph becomes a menace to try to take down. Follow that up with Grab and you have a player that can step around a target, then pull it out of the way to set up a Blitz in the following turn. Very expensive, but very good. Taking bonus armour is also worth considering to let her avoid the tragic KO+.

Guard: This build is a cheaper option that focuses around having a sticky (Side Step) Guard player that can continuously harass your opponent trying to break your screens. This build takes only primaries to skill up faster. Juggernaut is used to get her into position with her Blitz as well as provide OTTD support against Stand Firm Teams. Grab helps counteract Side Step and also sets up easy 2 die hits on a target when combined with Guard. Brawler makes the close range punches more reliable.

Sisters of the Thorn

• Build 1: Kicker
• Skill priority: Kick, Block\Dodge

• Build 2: Leader
• Skill priority: Leader, Block\Dodge

• Build 3: Quarterback
• Skill Priority: Cannoneer, Sure Hands, Pass, On the Ball, Dump-off

• Build 4: Sacker
• Skill priority: Wrestle, Tackle\Strip Ball

• Build 5: Line elf
• Skill Priority: Dodge\Wrestle, Sidestep, Jump up, Fend

• Build 6: Fouler
• Skill priority: Dirty player, Sneaky Git

Because of the presence of the Spites to use as line fodder and the Passing skill access on the Sisters, there are very few elves in the game that can be as flexible as the Isha linemen. There are 3 general skills that do not fit into one of the builds above, Dauntless, Pro, Shadowing. Pro is just generally solid and generally worth keeping as a random, Dauntless can be built into a sacker if you have a league where some high strength players need sacking. Only Shadowing is bad out of the general list so I highly recommend rolling randoms with these players unless you have a particular build in mind. The builds below are roughly in the order I would consider as important to have.

• Build 1: Kicker

Elves benefit greatly from having a source of Kick on the team and Isha even more so with their high amount of Side Step allowing them to set up brutal screens early in a drive. Block and Dodge help keep it alive, but if you have multiple random kicks, you can look to blend this role with another role. Build this role if you randomly hit Kick or Block.

• Build 2: Leader

At 60k, Isha have expensive rerolls for an elf team. Leader is a 40k discount on that and can be pretty easily achieved by doing some vanity passes between linemen early in a season. Blodge is to protect the Leader skill. You will probably build this role intentionally, but it goes well with random Block.

• Build 3: Quarterback

Having 2+ Passing linemen was what drew me originally to the team. If you are playing your offense correctly, you shouldn’t really need Pass as you will have rerolls available for the attempt, but it can be extremely useful on defence after a frantic scramble for the ball, having a line elf that can toss the ball to safety is pretty useful. Cannoneer lets you attempt the riskier passes more reliably. Build this direction if you randomly hit Sure Hands.

• Build 4: Sacker

If you don’t want to use a Naiad for this role, a Sister works perfectly fine with some skills. Wrackle with strip ball virtually ensures that ball is coming out. Build this way if you randomly hit strip ball, wrestle or tackle or if you don’t want to use your Naiads for this position.

• Build 5: Line elf

Once your Spites have laid their lives down as line fodder, you will start to have to put some Sisters in there to take their place. They are also viable options if you are looking for something slightly more durable to take the hit but just recognize they aren’t cheap. Build this way if you believe Spites deserve respect or if you randomly hit Wrestle or Fend.

• Build 6: Fouler

This is a rather expensive player to be fouling with but any elf team appreciates some ability to remove enemy players so if you randomly roll dirty player you can build to sneaky get and have a 105k fouling player.

BUILDS

Defensive and Offensive Strategies for Isha
Isha aren’t tough, and they aren’t particularly fast, they don’t have a great variety in their stats and lack widespread strength access. That means they have to lean into their unique aspects to play the game slightly differently than most other teams. More than nearly any other team, Isha wants to play defence first.

Defence

• You will lose players quickly, but they may come back!
• The high amount of Side Step means defensive elf screens will be especially hard to crack
• Widespread Side Step also allows you to create a substantial threat to a cage by basing up cage corners. If they push you, you may end up next to the ball carrier!
• As a squishy elf squad, you are going to lose players pretty quickly. Unlike other elf squads, roughly half of that will come back later! That means your spurt of aggressive play is less likely to completely cripple your second half play. Even with that bonus, Isha lack the starting skills and stats to play a purely aggressive playstyle and should instead look to control the field on defence and force the opponent into making a mistake that you can capitalize on.

Look to use the classic 2 deep elf screen in the middle of the field to force the opponent to a sideline. Once you have them there leave a pair of screens in front of the formation to keep them in place and use the rest of the team to start applying pressure to the cage/screen. If you can get 2 sidestep bases on one for those key players, Side Step will apply significant passive pressure as any push could lead to an easy sack. Try to look to do this around turn 5-6 as it will be especially difficult for your opponent to both deal with that pressure and find time to score. After about turn 3 or 4 try to leave someone within scoring range, even if it is a Spite, in case you manage to get the sack.

Offence

• Your linemen having 2+ passing will shock and amaze your opponents!
• Isha aren’t fast by elf standards until they get some stats, so the lightning fast 2 turn scores are less available to you
• You lack the stats to cage properly
• Isha offense is… weird. They play as a hybrid between High Elves and Dark Elves. They lack the speed of the High Elf Catchers, but have much better passing potential than the Dark Elf roster. This leads to two main plays you look for on offence. If you receive first, or you are playing against a slow roster, a really good idea would be to disengage from the enemy immediately and retreat to your side of the field while your throwing Sister gathers the ball. Over the course of a few turns you look to set up screens and get an elf behind enemy lines where they can break away and use the Side Step screens to prevent an enemy from catching them. The spites work especially well using their Titchy Stunty Dodges to set screens that normally wouldn’t be possible.
  

The other play is similar to the Dark Elf running game where you typically have 3 groups of players. First is your ball carrying group of 5-6 players down one sideline. Next is your centralized group of 1-2 players that has a good throwing player and can have a solid Blitzer to help spring the ball carrier. This group is usually 2-3 squares behind the main group. if the enemy commits to basing them up, and you outspeed them, you can use those players to tie them down as you advance the main effort. The final group is a receiving group similar to the main group on the other sideline with the remaining players. Similarly, if the opponent overcommits to guarding them, they can dodge out and screen off the opposing players to advance the main group. If your opponent overcommits to the main group, you can hand the ball off to one of the line Elves, preferably in the 2nd group and pass it to the other sideline for an easy score. This style of offense gives the opponent many opportunities to make a mistake.

Written by Carthage
Quote by Garion