Dark Elf Lineman Overview:
Dark Elf Linemen do the dirty work for the team as is usual for their position. Their biggest advantage though compared to other Linemen from other teams is that are also very flexible. With their high agility which comes from being an Elf they can fill in to do any required ball handling should your ideal choice be out of position or injured. They can also move around the pitch fairly easily to mark up specific targets without getting tied up away from the action. You can also move them into positions to screen off their team mates, get into scoring positions, or stand in front of a cage to slow its progress. Dark Elf Linemen also have a reasonable armour value at AV8 so they aren’t as fragile as some of their elven counterparts and don’t have to worry so much about doing jobs marking opposition where they will be getting hit. Having access to agility skills as well can aid them against a lot of players, for either direct protection or minimising the number of hits they take.
The biggest downside though is their cost, for players who are going to be taking hits, especially from dangerous players. They are worth more in Team Value than other Linemen on other teams and so you lose out more when they get injured and don’t get as much of a value difference when marking up other players. Against some players they may be marking you can find yourself marking a player of less value, like Norse Linemen, or even worse if your player has some skill increases as well.
As for jobs they do, as usual one will be equipped to do the kicking duty. You may want a couple to deal with opposing ball carriers depending how the rest of your team looks. Otherwise I would build them to be able to effectively tie up opposition or block their path by being good screening players. You may be tempted to build one for fouling duty though a lot of the time you will get a fairly expensive player sent off, sometimes in trade for a worse one. With expensive players this probably isn’t the best of ideas. I would look to be flexible with the skill choices and fill in the skill gaps in your team, especially taking into account other races in your league environment. Remember that with high agility getting a first skill on all of them shouldn’t be too much of a problem as you just have to gain a completion on any that get an MVP. I often try to get completions on all of my Elven Lineman before they get the MVP so you get the skill after that game rather than the following one.
Dark Elf Kicker:
- Normal: Kick, Block, Dodge/Side Step
- Doubles: Guard
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV
Your first Lineman to skill up I would recommend to build into a kicker unless you roll a double or stat increase. All Eleven teams are agile enough to take advantage, even though Dark Elves are the slowest of the Elven teams. So Kick first and follow it up with Block for protection and keeping him on his feet. I often find they don’t get many skills as you try to keep them in reserves when you aren’t kicking and out of the action when you are so they don’t get hurt. If you get more though Dodge is great (unless in Tackle heavy leagues) and Side Step is handy for marking receivers as your kicker tends to be behind your lines. Guard is needed on Elven teams as they have no strength access on normals, though I really prefer not to get them really stuck in to preserve the Kick ability. I wouldn’t pass up +ST or +AG, though you have a dilemma for either +AV, +MV or just taking a normal skill. I think I actually prefer the skill as it keeps the Team Value down a bit and I think it will be more useful in more situations.
Ball Blitzing Lineman:
- Normal: Wrestle, Tackle, Strip Ball/Side Step/Leap, Diving Tackle
- Doubles: Guard
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV
As you have four Blitzers with Block and chances are you gave at least one of your Witch Elves Block as well, you could do with building at least one specialist player for taking down ball carriers. With only MV6 I would like two with Wrestle and Tackle and then vary the skills after that. It is also harder for the opposition to remove two of them compared to one. So after that Strip Ball could be handy if none of your Blitzers have it, Side Step to remain next to the ball carrier if you don’t knock them down. Leap to get at ball carriers that are screened off or in a cage and Diving Tackle to make it harder for them to dodge away. Chances are you probably won’t get more than two skills unless you are playing a very long league though so pick skills to fill in the gaps for roles not already fulfilled by a team mate. Guard on doubles as usual for most Elves and +ST, +AG or +MV are all nice for this player.
I suppose you mean “Dirty Player” instead of the 2nd “Fodder/Screening Lineman”.
Nice input though I find it hard myself to field 6 linemen, when I also have 1 runner, 2 assasins, 4 blitzers and soon 2 witches. Would you say it would be better to go for linemen instead of the positional players?
Late night and copy pasting laziness caught me out, thanks for spotting that. Personally I’d only have one Assassin and one Runner on my team making 14 players and then field on the pitch those players that best worked against each opposing team. This is because I prefer the extra armour, obviously you can use the Blitzers to fill in for Linemen if you take less.
Chances are though that you start the team with at least 6 Lineman as well, so unless you have any die or get injured so you retire them, sacking them to replace them with perhaps another Assassin doesn’t seem likely. Linemen are also lower Team Value as well which can make the difference as far as Inducements are concerned.
Regarding Dirty Player and Get The Ref kick off result. I would bet my money that Get The Ref proposed change for LRB6 (out sometime in the next few weeks) to one Bribe for each team instead of unlimited risk free fouling gets made official.
Its always handy to have one player on your team with dirty player.
It allows you to take advantage of ‘got the ref’ and also gives you the option to buy a bribe at the start of the game if against a squishy opposition (against bashy typically you’ll buy the spare apoth)
Not having a dirty player is no big deal, but a dirty player can swing the whole game if you’re against other elves or norse and ‘got the ref’ comes up.
Still, having an “armor specialist” comes in handy. Against the murderes you’ll see in bashy teams, it’s just self defense.
I’d rather see my guy sent off the pitch than loosing half my team to a rampaging Mino, or Crinos, or…
Void,
have a look on the forums under my post on chaos.
You NEED a fouler on most teams imo, every opponent will have at least one killer on their team of some sort.
You need to be able to take that guy out, and for a lot of teams (elves come to mind!) the only way to do that reliably is fouling unless you got a good couple of doubles on a player and they dont take him out 🙂
I agree, a Dirty Player/Sneaky Git is a god send for eleminating specific opposing players.
But some teams already have this specialist built in, e.g. Chainsaw for Goblins and Assassin for Dark Elves. While yes, the Assassin isn’t as effective for beating armour, they also never get sent off, etc.
BoB, you misunderstood me. Reread my post.
What I call an “armor specialist” is a dirty player elf 🙂
And by saying that I’d rather have my guy sent off the pitch, I ment kicked out by the ref.
Mid and high TV elves team need a dirty player, we both agree on that.
Is Sneaky Git really better than Dirty Player? I didn’t really see the value in it, so I chose Wrestle as a second skill for my Dirty Player. I’m thinking it makes people not want to block him… It’s also better than Block for the particular role he’s playing in my team.
kowalski, its situational.
Sneaky git and dirty player are both necessary on a fouler in the current rules imo.
If you dont have sneaky git, theres a pretty good chance you’ll only get one or two goes at fouling the guy off that you really need off.
If you dont have dirty player, then you’ve got a much lower chance of sending their guy off the pitch which was the point of the foul.
Interestingly, in the board game, if you foul and equal the opponents armour with a double and have both skills, you could choose not to add dirty player, and thereby not get fouled off (you wouldnt break armour)
But in the cyanide version, it auto-uses dirty player and you’ll get fouled off… boo 🙁
Nice articles Coach. It would be nice to see one for the Runner and one for the Assassin too now that the Dark Elves have gone live on the Cyanide server!
Assassin was one of the first players I did…
I’ll get one done for the Runner at some point, thanks for the compliment!
I like to have one lineelf with Leader instead of wasting a skill in one of my thrower/runners…
That’s just my opinion…
But then you have wasted your double and not taken Guard, personally I don’t bother with Leader but if I did I’d take a second runner and get it on him.
Gotta agree with Coach.
Though I do like Leader, I wouldn’t use up a Double on it.
Guard is too important a skill to miss out on, unless you have at least 2 dudes with it already.
Just wondering, i’ve heard a lot of talk on several forums that dark elf linemen are the best or at least one of the very best of the linemen class in the game. I’m wondering if its just talk, or whether there is some truth to the claim, and if so, why?
Depends on your criteria, as this involves pretty much every race this would be far better suited for discussion on the forum than on this article.
I’ve recently changed my skill order to DE lineelves (still picking guard on any double) for the scrimmage line.
It used to be Block / Dodge / Side-Step (lrb4).
I’m running Wrestle / Fend / Dodge now.
I fell in love with fend, and I prefer it over dodge as a second skill. That applies to AV8 elves however. My wood elves are always getting dodge as 2nd skill, as AV7 is paper-thin.
Im in a pretty heavy hitting league with only one tackle heavy team (chaos dwarves), so im thinking that either block or dodge should be first skills for linemen, what do u say? Dodge increase safety just as much as block, but increase mobility more. Wrestle seems nice for one or to combined with tackle/strip ball.
Depends how many other teams there are, if its a small league and you are playing the Chaos Dwarfs soon then I’d go Block first. A larger league with more teams then Dodge is better while the other teams don’t have much in the way of Block. Though I’d personally go Wrestle over Block on at least the first three Linemen. I also assume you have a kick player already, if not that should be first?
Any more team specific questions though can you start a thread on the forum rather than using the comments please, or these will end up with lots of overly specific questions and answers. Good Luck.
So I just rolled doubles on the second skill for my Kicker, and already have 2 Blitzers with Guard. Guard is so tasty that I’m tempted to take it and risk my Kicker in the ruck, but I’m leaning towards playing it safe with Block, especially as the team is in league playoffs and I’d really hate to lose my Kicker.
I’m curious whether you’d take Guard anyway…
I went with Guard on the Kicker. It’s worked out well so far, as Guard is useful for the mobile assist, and I’m not planning on sticking him anywhere he needs to make blocks, and usually another player draws the Blitz so he’s fairly safe.
Well, at least so far, after only one game. 😉 I’d definitely take Guard again though, even despite already having Kick.
Do you have an aversion to Dauntless Coach? I don’t seem to recall you suggesting or indeed mentioning it anywhere and IMO it’s one of the best ‘grunt’ skills out there. Turning fodder into the terror of high strength players.
It is a skill I don’t take very often and so it is easy to forget about it. It can be worth having on a Dark Elf Lineman or two, though you can just as happily do without it.
It takes long enough to get Dauntless on Linemen that I’ll generally take it on a Blitzer first, and so have less need for it on Linemen.
Maybe on about the 4th skill for a Lineman? I’d be increasingly inclined to take Dauntless if I had bad luck getting any Guard though.
Hey Coach. First skill roll got me guard. Second skill roll got me doubles again. THoughts?
It really depends on what the whole team looks like, if you make a thread on the team development forum and post your whole roster then people can give you the various options.