High Elf Lineman Overview:
High Elf Linemen have to do a lot of the unglamorous jobs on the pitch in order to let their more talented team mates do what they do best. They are good players in their own right though, average speed, strength, armour, with high agility and great skill access. This does mean though for such a basic position they do tend to cost quite a lot compared to other teams Linemen.
As usual the Linemen roles include duty of standing on the Line of Scrimmage to get hit, marking players, creating screens and generally protecting their more expensive team mates. Their usefulness on the pitch and their high cost may lean you towards avoiding doing fouls with them though like you would with a cheaper Lineman.
Development of High Elf Lineman takes the usual route for Linemen skills, though with access to agility skills as well as general skills they can quickly become far more useful than just being a tackle zone. If you get an early stat increase on a High Elf Lineman then you can really tailor them into a more specific role.
High Elf Lineman Kicker:
The first one of your High Elf Linemen to gain their first skill should take Kick unless you happen to roll a double or stat increase. Having a team with high agility and movement you can really make great advantage of a good kick off and Kick enables you to get that more often than not. After that you will find that your kicker will tend to get targeted by the other team so you want skills to help protect him in the form of Block or Dodge. Which ever you don’t get first you should take on the next increase but regardless of this you want to try and avoid them being hit at all. In a Tackle light league I would look to take Dodge first as it will make it easier for you to dodge them away to safety if they get marked. You will probably find players with Kick don’t really skill up a great deal but if you do get more than Fend and Side Step are your best options.
Being honest there probably aren’t really any great doubles or stat increases to take, as it will just increase his value and probably put them in more danger. Doubles for any Elves are usually going to be Guard but that encourages being in tackle zones. A strength 4 Elf is something that is always going to be useful but you would much rather have it on anyone else on the team. Same really applies to an agility increase as well. If you roll a ten then you have more options with perhaps an armour increase being tempting. If you were to forgo all of these though and just take a normal skill, I would have a hard time arguing with that idea.
Standard High Elf Lineman:
- Normal: Wrestle / Dodge, Fend, Side Step / Tackle, Dauntless
- Doubles: Guard
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV / +AV
As I already mentioned a High Elf Lineman can become really flexible and this build really isn’t a bad option for any of the rest of the ones who develop. As they are going to be on the Line of Scrimmage you want to try and protect them. Wrestle is my personal favourite to take in this circumstance, though taking Block is a fine alternative. Dodge is the other starting option and I would probably take it first unless you are facing lots of teams with plenty of Tackle. It offers the same protection against everyone else but also increases your ability to move around and also save on rerolls. I would take Fend next as it negates Piling On and also Frenzy and can also eliminate the need to dodge. Side Step is very annoying to play against in my opinion the next best option. After that skills become a bit less useful, Tackle is good if in a Dodge heavy environment and / or if you are Tackle light. You could also consider taking it before Side Step if you are facing a lot of Dodge. Having one or two players with Dauntless may also help out a lot if facing stronger players quite a lot.
If you roll doubles then Guard is pretty much your only option. No one on the team can get it without rolling doubles and it is one of the best skills in the game. A strength increase would be great and I would still follow the same skill path, they are too valuable to put on the Line of Scrimmage though. An agility increase will make them much better at handling the ball and may perhaps make taking Sure Hands a good option. A movement increase can be helpful though I personally think the team has enough speed anyway that I would ignore it in favour of a skill. Some armour nine Linemen might be nice for the Line of Scrimmage or if they already have Guard.
High Elf Linemen Summary:
You can probably tell that I don’t really think you need to specialise High Elf Linemen much at all. Their team mates cover all the other options that the team needs and once the team starts developing your Linemen probably aren’t going to collect SPP at much speed at all. Don’t be surprised if most of them only end up with one or two skills anyway. There is an option to build a fouler with Dirty Player and Sneaky Git but I don’t think you really need to be fouling with High Elves. Even the basic Lineman is more useful than quite a lot of Blood Bowl players and is usually worth more in team value, getting them sent off isn’t going to be a great trade a lot of the time.
July 26th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
I rather like the idea of block on linemen, not so much because it helps them on the LOS but because they make such good “back up” catchers with 4 agi and wrestle isn’t exactly what you’re looking for on a person who might hold the ball at some point. Then again you could always just make sure to have your tosses not go to wrestle linemen but I kinda like the flexibility.
July 26th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
I personally on the whole only pass the ball forward to someone who then goes on to score. The Linemen having Wrestle still lets them do this, if you get enough players through to receive they can only blitz one, so them having Wrestle doesn’t really matter. Having Wrestle against slower players with Block and Guard though lets you take them prone those 1 in 9 times that they took Block to avoid.
I still take Block on a couple of Linemen though, but I think having at least three with Wrestle for the Line of Scrimmage is very helpful. Also having multiple Wrestle players means it is much harder for them to protect their ball carrier against it.