It’s not long in any coach’s Blood Bowl career before they encounter some flavour of Elves and get a good taste of ‘Elf BS’. Players that seem to be able to move half the pitch at a time, walk through tackle zones, and attack the ball or score in seemingly effortless fashion. Most coaches then give these teams a go themselves and experience the other side of the coin, a succession of failed dodges and a heavy beatdown. In this feature I’m going to look at every aspect of Agility-based Blood Bowl and show you the techniques and tricks to getting the best from one of the most mentally and technically challenging playstyles in the game.
Who Are The Agility Teams?
So who exactly are we talking about here? At its core, the four Elf teams:
- Dark Elves
- Elven Union
- High Elves
- Wood Elves
All of whom feature universal AG2+ on their linemen and positionals.
The teams who have a mix of AG2+ and AG3+ players – Skaven, Slann, and Vampires – do often use many of the same techniques and concepts as those core teams, but cannot consistently implement some of the general plays because their linemen cannot reliably disengage from contact. They also tend to have their own specific gameplay styles thanks to their unique rosters.
Teams like Underworld, Gnomes, or Chaos Renegades, who have the odd AG2+ player but are more generally defined by their Stunty players or Big Guys, are not included in this discussion.
The Agility Mentality
I’m going to start with this because there are a couple of really important aspects to playing Agility teams that you need to accept before you get going.
Firstly, you will almost certainly be outbashed and targeted for fouls in every game, and you will frequently see your best and most valuable players injured and killed. This can require a certain amount of mental resilience, especially in League play, where you can take some nasty hits to development. A good way to think of the Agility game is that your players are resources you spend in order to win games of Blood Bowl.
Secondly, you very often will be playing unintuitive Blood Bowl. You’ll often be running away from opponents. You might spend several turns doing your best not to score. You might have to commit to a 5+ roll very early in a turn because it might win you the game. There are many more examples, but Elf play often runs counter to the kind of midfield brawl people expect when they sit down to play Blood Bowl, or that goes against the kind of solid risk-based thinking that works for 80% of teams.
Defense
Defense is arguably the most important aspect of Agility play to master, as it not only requires a coach to embrace the thinking mentioned above, but also because more than any other kind of team in Blood Bowl, Agility teams have a very realistic plan to score (and win the game) on their opponent’s drives.
At its heart, defense with Agility teams involves playing a game of brinkmanship, where you mostly keep a distance between your defensive line and the offense, while poised to strike if any opportunity presents itself. You will often have to pick a turn where you go all in, either switching your strategy to base up multiple opponents, or committing to use whatever rerolls you have to make a game-changing play.
Let’s start with the first part.
Screening And Column Defense
The screen, and particularly the two-deep or column screen, is the fundamental Agility defensive approach. Screens are the method of choice because they allow a small number of players to control a lot of space on the pitch while retaining flexibility themselves. With generally higher movement and agility than our opponent, we can react to situations wherever they might be on the pitch. We don’t generally bring a lot of Guard or Strength, so trying to make walls that just make it easy for opponents to base up multiple players at the same time and keep us boxed into parts of the pitch is not in our interest.
Normal Elf defense will see these screens retreat and reset multiple times during a drive. You have to embrace the 2+ rolls that take your players away from base contact and recreate the screens that prevent them walking through your lines.
Attacking from Defense
There are two main scenarios where Agility breaks out of the screen and does something different.
The first scenario is when an opponent suffers some misfortune or makes a mistake that gives us a shot at the ball. The two normal examples are failed ball pick-ups or ball-handling; or things like failed dodges, rushes, or mis-positioning that create gaps in the opponent’s cage or screen.
At this point we have to make a decision: Has an opportunity been created that we can easily exploit, or will we need to throw a lot of resources or tough dice to take advantage of it? Is it the right time in the game to go all-in, or can we play a bit safer and let play develop further? The answers to these questions will of course depend on the game state, the teams and players in play, and of course the coaching matchup. The most important thing is to recognise the opportunity, and go through the thinking process to evaluate it.
The second scenario is when we simply have to force something to happen. Normally this means making some kind of cage-dive or succession of tough rolls that let us attack the ball. This might be required because we have taken a lot of damage and the column screens are no longer possible; or we have got out of position somehow, and the opponent will score if we don’t take the ball.
It might also mean abandoning our keep away approach and heavily basing up. If the opponent is short on rerolls or lacks the ability to simply bash us off the pitch this can be very effective. Even if the opponent can make a number of blocks, having all their players tagged may mean we gain a big positional advantage and can attack the ball on our next turn, or simply bog them down and drain their turns. This is often an effective technique for Dark Elves and High Elves because of their higher AV, but any Elf that has been blodged -up can be a nightmare for opponents to shift. Elven Union Blitzers can often singlehandedly cause nightmares for opponents by repeatedly Sidestepping into key squares.
Attacking a Cage
For most agility teams, attacking a ball carrier in a cage means making a dodge into it. In a typical cage setup, that means a dodge into three Tackle Zones, which means a 5+ roll. If we have Dodge or a Reroll, this is a 50% play. For Wood Elves and Slann, leaping into the cage is also an option. For a Wardancer, this leap is a 4+ roll, so a better option than the dodge. With a reroll this is 75% likely.
Once you’re in you have to hit the ball carrier of course, but this also needs some planning before you make the blitz, so that you remove as many assists as possible and get the best amount of Block dice. Assuming there is no Guard involved, just one of your players basing the two opponents on whichever side of the cage you attack from is enough to remove their assists. Depending on the circumstances, and especially where the opponent does have Guard in play, your own assists and strength might not be enough to make that hit better than 2D against. At that point this tactic should be limited to desperation only, or when you have specialists with skills like Strip Ball or Wrestle.
Defensive Kick-Offs
As with general defensive play, the defensive kick-off is one of the most crucial parts of the Agility game because it often creates dynamic scenarios that we excel at, and that cause problems for other teams. Thus we have to prepare to take advantage of those possibilities.
Asymmetry
Asymmetrical set-ups are an unintuitive but subtly powerful way to shift our opponent’s strength from where it would naturally be placed, and create potential overload plays for us.
Most bash teams want to control the middle of the field. They know they do not have the movement or Agility to cover the breadth of the field, and they want to keep our defense as honest as possible before they make their move. When we set up asymmetrically we are presenting them with a challenge: Will you change your plan so that you can still block us? Are you prepared to risk a position where a failed pickup or a Blitz kickoff result will give us a huge scoring opportunity?
There are a multitude of ways to do this but fundamentally it is about putting your mandatory three LOS players to one side of the centre. The rest of your team can be arranged per the game situation, but remember you are looking to create the potential for play on the other side of the field to your LOS.
Driving A Wedge
When a kick-off lands deep in the opponent’s half, we have a good chance to split their team in two, even if they pick the ball up, which can create really strong subsequent opportunities to pressure the ball.
Opponents who have slow or low agility players are the most susceptible to this. The more players they have committed to the LOS, the less they are likely to be able to bring back to help guard the ball carrier. Â
Blitz
Finally, of course, we have the Blitz kick-off result, which is the dream for Agility teams. It creates an incredible opportunity to immediately possess or pressure the ball and score on the opponent’s drive. This is somewhat true for all teams, of course, but Agility teams are uniquely able to capitalise on it.
Generally the goal from a Blitz is to find a way to get a player from your team under the ball before it lands, or failing that, hit or tag any opposing players who can catch the ball, or put Tackle Zones in the landing zone. After that you have a chance to make a head start on driving a wedge, as described above, or simply create screens that block out the opponent from the ball area.
Remember you can’t use Team Rerolls and some auto-reroll skills like Dodge in the Blitz turn, so be careful with your moves!
Offense
Offensive strategy for Agility teams generally goes in one of two directions, heavily influenced by the opponent and game state.
Scoring quickly is the preferred strategy when:
- You have few turns available.Â
- Your opponent has few players, or is outmatched, and you want to try and push for more scores.
- Your opponent has Secret Weapons that will be sent off.
Stalling is the better option when:
- It’s the start of a half.
- Your opponent has a player advantage and their subsequent drive will be difficult to stop.
- Your opponent has KO’ed players that may return.
- You are already winning and just want to burn the turn counter.
Scoring Quickly
There are a couple of general techniques to score quickly with Agility teams. The first is to flood the opponent’s backfield with scoring threats and then deliver the ball (normally via Pass, but often via Hand-off) to one of them. The second is to create a strong sideline screen within range of the endzone that makes it impossible for the opponent to get to the ball.
Flooding the opponent’s half is strong when your opponent has few players to mark your potential scoring threats. It can be particularly good for Elven Union, because Nerves of Steel Catchers don’t have to worry about penalties to catch the ball. Â
The downside of this approach is that at least one of your potential threats is going to be blitzed and probably taken away, and the rest are probably going to be tagged, so you need enough players, in good enough positions, and almost certainly a good few dice rolls to make your score. Â
Passing is also fraught with danger (deflections/interceptions) and dice rolls, even for Agility teams, so take nothing for granted.
Sideline screening is very effective when your opponent lacks the mobility to overlap your position and reset their defensive lines. However, there are a couple of potential pitfalls. The first is that this approach shows your hand, so to speak, and makes you fully committed to that side of the field. If your opponent does have the mobility to reform defensively, they can concentrate all their efforts on that side. Â
Secondly, you must beware the possibility of being surfed. There are often multiple options and methods to do this available to teams who have Stunty players or Frenzy players.
Stalling
There are a couple of techniques to stalling, but the general gist is that you keep your opponent at arm’s length and use your mobility to eat up turns while you position for an eventual score.
The most natural way to do this is to break multiple players through the opponent’s lines, just as though looking for the quick score, and then pivot those players so that you are ‘defending’ the opposition end zone.
Withdrawn Offense
This is a particular kind of stall that has become more popular and well-known in recent years. It is one of the best examples of counter-intuitive Agility play. The essence of the approach is to withdraw your team from the LOS after you receive the kick, and try and draw your opponent deep into your half after you. Not only does this limit the amount of damage they can do to your team from blocking, but it also creates the potential to blast past your opponent and use your speed to rush up the end of the field and stall again from there before scoring.
One-Turn Touchdowns
We’ve talked about One-turning a few times before. This is a very complex subject that often requires specific positioning, particular players, and numbers of players to be achievable. The best suggestion I can make on this topic is to research how your particular team can achieve it, and try and practice and memorise those options so you are ready to execute them if the game situation allows it.  FUMBBL has a good selection of One-turn setups for different teams and amounts of MA.
If one-turning seems impossible, remember you have a 5% chance of getting Time Out on the Kick-Off table, so setting up for a two-turn score is always worth it.
Final Thoughts
As we’ve alluded to, many of the topics covered in this guide are article-worthy in their own right. Because of their flexibility, and the sheer amount of options they have in moving around the field, there are many ways to play any given Elf turn. Hopefully this article has served to get you in the right frame of mind to find your own flavour of Elf BS and to get the best from it. Happy dodging!
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