High Elf Blitzers

Blood Bowl High Elf Blitzer
High Elf Blitzer Overview:

I think that a starting High Elf team really needs to include both Blitzers from the get go. Block is at its best early on in team development and their speed and agility is more than enough to make them scoring threats as well before your Catchers get in on the party. It is their high speed and agility combined with their decent but not great strength and armour that makes them such flexible players. With Block they can hit well early on and also combined with their armour they can mark opponents with some success. They can also move around with relative ease and they are more than happy at handling the ball as well.

As High Elf Blitzers are so flexible it is hard to really pin specific development routes and roles for them on the team. I personally try to maintain their flexibility from their early skills then after that I would mould them to fulfil areas your team needs a bit of a boost. Development in this manner will keep them useful for both offence and defence and they will be the ones who you are happy to set up at the start of every drive. If they get an early stat increase you may decide to tailor that player to something more specific, otherwise they can pretty much do anything you wish.

Adaptable High Elf Blitzer:

As I already said I like to keep them flexible early on and that means starting with Dodge. Dodge is great not only for protection, but also it lets them move around more freely whilst also saving team rerolls. I don’t think any other skill compares to it first up unless you are in a very tackle heavy environment. Side Step comes next to stop them getting bogged down, you can position to get good return blocks, have an easy dodge route out, tie up an opposing player or block off a running lane. Once you have these two skills your Blitzers can do a fine job in every drive, unless you roll a double or a stat increase I can’t see past starting their development in this way.

It is after those two early skills that I then would start to look towards specialising. Your team probably has some Catchers by now if you didn’t start with any. This slows down the Blitzers development as you want to get two skills on the Catchers as soon as you can. The extra speed of the Catchers means they will also start to take over some of the Blitzing duty and the higher armour of the Blitzers means you would prefer them for marking or being hit, especially as they should have Block and Dodge. So your skills from this point as they come slower will depend on what the team really needs.

If you are facing a lot of Dodge then I would get Tackle on at least one, Strip Ball is another option but you could get that for a Wrestle Catcher. If you want to turn them into excellent marking players then Diving Tackle and Shadowing are worth having. Another very helpful option is to take Frenzy on one of them as well. With Side Step you can set up crowd pushes and not fear them so much in return and Frenzy is great for opening up more space and keeping the opposing players further from the edge of the pitch for space there as well. Dauntless is also perhaps worth some consideration to help against teams with a lot of stronger players.

For doubles I would get Guard early on and late on if you still don’t really have much, it is too useful to pass up and you can struggle against bashing teams who have a lot if you can’t cancel it in return. If you already have a few players with Guard then Mighty Blow can be good and you can turn them somewhat into a killer player going after the weaker opponents. Juggernaut also combines well with Frenzy and cancels out Wrestle for your Block to help get the opposing Wrestlers. It also cancels out Stand Firm which can be a big annoyance to deal with, cancels Fend to keep Frenzy useful and also lets you turn both down into push backs when going for the crowd push.

I wouldn’t turn down +ST or +AG increases at any point, extra strength will make Frenzy an even better option, while extra agility changes their role into one where you are doing more ball handling and retrieving. If you get the latter then some extra skills might be more useful, Sure Hands for example. I would probably pass on movement or armour for the first skill as I would prefer to get Dodge. I could even pass up on them late on as your team already has plenty of speed and the whole team can dodge well to get someone where ever you need them. Extra armour is touch and go, a lot of the time it won’t come into play much and you need to decide if another skill is going to be more useful instead. It does become more desirable if they have some skills already that you would really like to protect though, a ST4, Frenzy and Mighty Blow combo would be getting a lot of attention from the opposition.

High Elf Blitzer Summary:

To reinforce my ideas for High Elf Blitzers, keep them flexible early on and then specialise later towards what your team needs, whilst also considering the kind of opponents you face the most, or have the most trouble dealing with. They have quite a lot of normal skills to take that can be useful and already are so after just two. If you find their development really slows down after that while you look to improve their team mates then that really isn’t anything to be worried about. It may also turn out to be a good thing as the team will be more rounded and you aren’t bloating your team value with needless extra skills.

12 thoughts on “High Elf Blitzers”

  1. Why stick Blitzers on the line? That’s what LINEmen are for. The Blitzers on my “National H-Elf Service” team, both rolled doubles early, and I gave them both juggernaut. It is really useful for punching holes in the defensive line, to allow my recievers through to recieve the long pass

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    • Without reading through it, I’m fairly certain I haven’t said to put Blitzers on the LOS. I can’t see me ever recommending that so not sure where you got that idea from…

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  2. I never take dodge on my High Elf Blitzers. Dodge/wrestle are for lineelves and catchers. I develop my blitzers in a pure offensive role. One is the cagebreaker that gets leap and strip ball. The other one gets tackle. On doubles always get your blitzers mighty blow instead of guard. Dodge is also unnecessary since the blitzers are never your opponents top priority target, the catchers are.

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  3. I just had a Blitzer roll +AG on his first level, I was thinking of following that with Leap and Strip Ball so no ball carrier, caged or not, would be safe. Is this a good plan or would his AG be more useful in a catching roll?

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  4. All Elf players are already really good at catching the ball and a High Elf team can get four Catchers too. You don’t need any extra skills on the team to help with catching. Defence is what you should be building for to help the team the most. Unless you face a lot of teams without Sure Hands, I would take Dodge first as it offers protection as well as better movement and then look towards Leap. Leap it’s no good if your player dies and you will usually attempt more dodges than you would leaps.

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  5. Dragon Warrior are just fantastic one of the best players in BB.

    I played a High elve team this Year in the Socks’ League (Tisseurs de Chimères). Idon’t play very well the pass game I need to improve.

    But I dressed up my dragon warrior like that:

    My Starplayer has Dodge, Leap and Strip Ball yes you understand, while linemen canceled corner of the cage My guy goes into and put some big trouble ! His next skill will be Side step i definitely agrre with your point of vew Coach.

    My Second one Has dodge and side step and is name is Pertubator! He is just where my opponent doesn’t want him to be! His next skill wil surely be Frenzy or MightyBlow ( Maybe the second one because i need XP) !!!

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  6. First of all: Thanks for your very helpful articles! I play a quite succesfull Highelf team and a lot of it is because of your excellent guidance! 🙂

    Now I have a question: One of my Blitzers has block/dodge, the other one was lucky and has guard as well as mighty blow. This one now leveled up again and I am really wondering, what would be the best skill to choose now!?

    My preference is dodge, but a friend thinks that tackle is a must for him now. Frenzy or side step could be interesting as well. Do you perhaps have an advice for me?

    By the way: My two Catchers are outstandingly fast scorers and I have two really good Throwers as well, so no need for a scoring Blitzer. Probably the main question is, whether to skill the second Blitzer for bringing down opponents or to take a more defensive role. Any counsel? 😉

    Thanks in advance and many greetings.

    Reply
    • Hi Morakh, ultimately it really depends on what the rest of your team looks like and what races you have to play against. If you don’t have much Tackle on the rest of your team and you’re facing a lot of other teams with Dodge then that would easily be the best choice. If you have a lot of Tackle on other players and are only up against teams who don’t really have much Dodge then it will be less useful.

      As he has Guard which tends to mean they will more often be in contact with other players (which will also mean you are going to hoefully get more use out of Might Blow as well) then you’ll want to make him harder to knock over. These factors would lean towards taking Dodge, especially if opposing teams are light on Tackle. It would be less useful if you have a lot of Dwarf and Chaos Dwarf teams.

      So assuming you’ve got other players with Tackle and or Wrestle for dealing with opposing ball carriers, I would go for Dodge.

      Reply
  7. Love the articles on all the players. I just have a quick question, I was wondering what should my next skill be for a +1 str, +1 ag, strip ball high elf Blitzer? I like Side Step but don’t have much Tackle on my team( one Lineman) but also thought Leap could be useful on him as well.
    Thanks in advance.

    Reply
    • I would take both Tackle and Side Step over Leap. Leap is rather risky and you can work around not having it. You don’t want a monster player like that knocking themselves over ready for a foul by trying to Leap. As to which of Tackle and Side Step that depends on how many ball carriers in your league have Dodge. If most of them do then take tackle, if they don’t then go with Side Step.

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  8. Hi Coach, So i have a Blodge Blitzer who got injured with a Minus 1 to Agi, however in the same match he got a +1 str, Im thinking of Keeping him to develop a Killer build as the agi loss shouldn’t impact that as much, however would be curious as to your thoughts regarding retiring or keeping him?

    Reply
    • Interesting situation, I’m not sure I’d have bothered even rolling to see the skill after taking that injury. You can certainly work around it, especially depending on how the rest of the team is built. Opposing coaches will try and mark them as much as possible to force dodge rolls which is something you will need to play around.

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