Because I've clearly not got enough unpainted Dark Elves sitting around I'm now starting a Dark Elf Blood Bowl team for the club's upcoming league. It'll be a few weeks before the leagues starts properly, but I managed to get a bit of pre-season play in at the club last night.The list I'm currently running looks like this:
Fan Factor: 2Unfortunately my players are still un-named, but I'll get around to that.
Re-Rolls: 2
7 Linesmen
2 Blitzers
1 Witch Elf
1 Runner
After playing around with a few different lists I've settled on this one, that closely follows what comes in the standard Dark Elf box. However the box comes from an earlier version of the Dark Elf list, so comes supplied with a Thrower which no longer exists. On the other hand, the list has a Runner which there's no model for. Easy solution then, use the Thrower as my Runner and I'm sorted!
I'd hoped to have more gold available for an Apothecary, some Cheerleaders and Assistant Coaches, etc. but the Dark Elves are an expensive team. In the end most of my gold went on just getting my basic 11 players. Because of that I'm likely to be spending the earnings of my first few games on those types of extras, starting with an Apothecary to keep my frail elves out of the graveyard!
So I played the list in a practice game last night, playing a half game against a Human team where I managed to pull off a 2-0 win. Won't go into much detail over what happened, but was really stunned at just how fast the Dark Elves can get about the field. At one point I had my Runner boxed in with the ball on one side of the field, but after the Humans broke the front of the box open he managed to rush across the field and hand off to a Blitzer who ran the ball down the other side of the field.
High agility is a fantastic thing, I had players pulling off most moves (picking up the ball, throwing and catching) on 2+ or 3+, which means I can move the ball about even faster than I can run. With agility 4 on the whole team it means that anyone can be used to make passing plays, so there's a lot of adaptability. Although not as physical a team as Orcs or Dwarves, the Witch Elf and Blitzers can hold their own in most situations if supported by runners so I'm still able to land a few blows.
The biggest thing I'm worried about once the season starts is losing players to injury, as I've got no reserves and no spare cash to spend on them, but careful play until I can afford an apothecary should keep me pretty safe. Expect more updates as the league progresses!
