[Wood Elf] How can Wood Elf teams counter Skaven one-turn-touchdowns?

[Sepukku84]

Hello
Please forgive me if I opened a thread which is already open. I was searching for a bit through the Forums but didn't find help. If there are already topics of this kind, I take no insult in closing/deleting this thread here, as long as there is a link to that thread. I am kind of new to the game, but I got the basics down and know what to do and played alltogether about 20-40 games.


Now turning to my problem:
I play a wood elf team against a friend of mine who plays Skaven. That team is really giving me headaches. While I do well against my brother's Lizardmen, against Chaos and Undead (although especially the Chaos team killed already three of my linemen), the one touch-down gutter runner that my friend is using in his Skaven team is destroying the whole game. I need at least two rounds to score, and only if I play rather risky. He has a gutter runner who got a raise in his Movement. That pesky rat is always standing in the front row on one of the sides, ready to run a touch down.

I tried a rather front-up wall. He then blitzes in to make a gap.
If I defend on the third last tile before the TD zone, he just runs by, even if all of my players except the three LoS-players are making a wall.

I don't have tackle on most models, so my question is this: Am I not seeing a very reasonable and easy way of dealing with that rat? I lose basically every game, like 5-4 tonight, because of that rat and that rat alone. He virtually didn't score with another model.

A Norse team lowered his Armour, but that's about it.

Your help would be appreciated, thanks!

[danton]

Best thing you can do is to try and take longer on your offense in order to try and remove some of his players and force him to field his one turner when defending. That means you then have a chance of hunting it and preventing it from being used in his next drive. If it only has Av 6, then that should be easier to do too.

So when you have the ball don't just try and score in 2 turns. Try and get him to commit players to you, so that you can do some bashing while protecting the ball for a few turns. Of course it depends on what skills you have on your team and how good his storm vermin and rat ogre are too. It's not as easy as just scoring in two turns potentially, but is the only realistic chance you have of removing his one turn scoring machine. The advantage you have is that line rats are only Av 7 and don't tend to have many skills, so they can be removed more easily than most opponents.

[Jasper]

If you win the opening coin flip, elect to receive. Pressure him to score quickly then take your time and score on turn 8, looking to go into half time 1-1. Then stall in the second half and look to score on turn 16.

This is more easily done with a bashy team, but Wood Elves can do it too against a relatively soft team like Skaven.

Also, beat the stuffing out of that AV 6 Speedy Gonzalez. Get yourself an Elf with Tackle and ideally Mighty Blow, and go to town. Maybe foul him when he's down if you've got enough bench to cover it.


One more thing, a simple +MV isn't enough to score directly from scrimmage for a Gutter Runner, he'll have to either setup a chain push or a Quick Snap. If he only has one turn and so you know he's going to go for the 1 turn TD, spread out your scrimmage players, then stack up your guys so the Tackle Zones cover their back. This makes the necessary chain push difficult, although it does make it easier for the +MV Runner to score on the 1/9 chance that Quick Snap is rolled.

[Viajero]

Jasper is correct. Just +MV is not enough. He needs another +MV or Sprint to be able to do a 1 turn TD with a gutter Runner. So, has he been doing chain pushes to make it move one tile up? IF that is so then the thread below may be relevant for you. I started that on the same topic, but focused on how to set up at the LoS. In my case I had 2 Side Step pieces, that help to prevent chain pushes. Having said that if youe opponent has a Quick Snap kick off event then nothing can stop him other than setting up a wall of Tackle zones that force him to to dodge 3+, 3+ and 2+.

How do you set up the LOS to stop a 1 turner?

Other things you can do are:

1- Foul the bastard to kingdom come during the game

2- Learn how to do 1 turn touchdowns yourself. With woodies is relatively easy to do. Your catchers are MA8 and Sprint, so in principle you only need 2 chain pushes to do it. See Coach´s excellent article about how to do a chain push for a MA6 (!!!) piece (link below). If you learn how to do it for an MA6 piece (where you need at least 5 chain pushes!!) it is quite easy to understand how it can be done for a MA8 with sprint piece where you only need 2 pushes.

http://bbtactics.com/mv6-one-turn-touchdown/

And this, customized for each race: http://fumbbl.com/help:OTT

[Sepukku84]

Thank you so far for the discussion, that's mighty nice!!! I forgot to mention he has Sprint, he is one quick little rat!


Also, and here is the good news, the first raise of my new promising Catcher was ... MA!!! So I will try to move him in the same direction. But here is what will happen because of that (and I saw it in my friend's team). The whole team won't get as much SPP and only one character model will do all the TDs. Anyway, it is nice to develop something to counter him.

Still that doesn't change the problem. The idea of receiving and then trying to bash his team into oblivion could do, although he has 14 or 15 players on his roster and I don't field a treeman. He often took roots and was standing like a salt pillar in the midle of the pitch. The war dancers I field are lvl 3 and 4, one of them has tackle already, which helps.

I really think since I may only put 2 guys in the Side Field that there is close to no counter to that pesky rat. :-(

Oh and about fouling... As long as he has any substitutions on the bench he only fields his Gutter Runner in the offense, does his one-turn-TD and then changes for the def to a lineman. :-(

[Jasper]

I too am facing a +MV and Sprint Gutter Runner in one of my next matches. +AG too!

I don't know what to say other than stall like mad. Hope you kick off first half, but even if you receive you can still go for the 2-1 grind in reverse.

Line up with a goal line stand when he only has one turn to score to minimize his chances. Needing to make a pickup, hand off, 3 dodges and 3 sprints is still likely to fail even with Sure Hands, a Dodge and a Reroll -- should fail somewhere in there more than 2/3rds of the time.

Best way to deal with a 1 turn scorer is to join a league, that way you don't have to play him all the time, and can let other teams take part in the joy of hunting that rat down. ;-)

[Sepukku84]

Hey Jasper thanks, also for the support just to raise my moral and telling me I am not alone. :-) The 2-1 grind is an idea, I must confess I didn't even think about it like that yet. On the other hand I wish I could bash that thing away. I am sure it has a stench of ... well all kind of rat-like stuff, I guess.

By goal line stand - do you mean putting my models in the last line before the goal-zone?
I tried that all the time. If I get closer to the LoS, I get blitzed wide open, no tackle zones at all. If I stand back there I am kind of safe, but there is no chance to get the ball in case he fumbles.

I guess I just have to wait until he makes a mistake and puts his Gutter Runner in def, and then bash0r the blazes out of him, including fouling that creature like crazy.

[Jasper]

You want to setup 2 squares in front of the endzone, so he'll need 3 dodges to get by you. This formation is only useful if he has exactly one turn to score though.

If he has more time, you basically just ignore the 1 turn TD option and play defense normally -- it's risky and you want him to attempt it. Leave a few players far enough back to recover the ball if he tries it and drops it, which is easy with Wood elves, but that's it.

Concentrate on getting him to score quickly, then making a sure score yourself leaving him as little time to answer as possible. Realize that he could instead have picked a Blodge + Sidestep Gutter Runner, which I think is much more generally effective on both offense and defense, especially if Speedy is mostly sitting on the bench.

[Sepukku84]

Good point there!

I got a MA raise on one of my Catchers as the first raise. The question is now how I can turn that one into a One-turn Touchdown-player.

Tbh: That is NOT my favorite playstyle. I rather would get some tackle on various players, hoping to stop that rat and being useful against other teams too. If my friend ever plays against dwarfs he will have a hard time winning, that's for sure.

[Purgatory]

There are a few set-ups that hinders him somewhat, but really the plan to counter one-turn TDers is three-fold:

1) Blitz the rat in question, preferably with a Tackle piece.

2) Get all your mates to round up around him.

3) Place a firm boot in his face.

4) If the rat somehow is not removed from the pitch, repeat step 3 until a satisified result is achieved.