My first Elfball game!

da_crusher · My first Elfball game!

Hi,

I had my first Elfball game yesterday evening against a friend of mine (we are both semi-veterans of that other game (don't know if I should mention that at all, as it doesn't change a bit)).
He took Black Rock Dwarves and I took Night Elves. We didn't want to have too many different positions on the field as we don't have the appropriate miniatures yet (still lookig for a sponsor on this).

Important things first: This game is really great. I'm desperatly looking forward playing again.

We played two tests and I lost 2:0.

The most important part of that game is it's unique game dynamic, can't think of similar game atm.

It is pretty simple to learn. It took me about an hour to explain the rules. And we finished in about 90 min. So you don't need three games in a row to only get to know the game mechaniks
We still made some mistakes, like forgetting the free action at a turn end. But this wasn't a big thing. Most actions ended with flop before the turn was finished.

The momentum thing and the way conditional successes work are really good parts of the game (I'd like more game authors pay to have such unique features in their game).

In the end I wasn't really satisfied with choosing the Night Elves. The lack in might and grit made it pretty hard to fight against his dwarves. He could control the center with just two of them and after dazing two of my elves I spend most of my turns just trying to get those guys on their feet again. In addition his additional might helped him winning the face off. And getting the ball from a M4 T4 centaur was not very easy.

Hope this post helps anyone, just wanted to let you know of gamer who had great time playing Elfball.

p.S: I'm looking forward to that Vassal client. Then nothing stops me from playing all the time (well...girl friend ...work...sports...TV... ... ...)

mattwakeman

Thanks for the feedback and I think that it is interesting that again we have somebody that is new to the game talking about how Might and Tackle tend to dominate. The thing is though, I can't but help think that both Dark Lord and Grumpy Grizzly were correct here when they were wondering if one of the reasons for this is that most (if not practically all at this site at the moment) have come from the 'other game' in which facing simply wasn't that important. Not that I want to put da_crusher's experience down any, it is just really hard to play this game without falling into the habit of the other.

If you have the advantage in dodge then it should have been much easier to get around the back of the ball carrier to really help even the odds. To me though, this is one of the really fun things about this game. It is asking us to think in a different way than we are used to and it will be really interesting to see just how long it takes for the 'way to play' to become out in the open for us vets of BBowl to start thinking about and digesting.

Good stuff though da_crusher and the most important thing is that you enjoyed playing the game. That is after all why any of us should be playing it.

GalakStarscraper

I've found that Night Elfs can be pretty effect at taking down Might 4 players by moving to hit from the rear.

Dwarves with a Dodge of 1 almost never need more than 1 success or two different rolls to take down once if hit from behind.

But I will admit that the Night Elf team is one of the more difficult to play right out of the box as you are learning the game.

Galak

bouncergriim

Got my real board and a couple of teams last week. My friend and I finally played on the real board with real elf ball dice this past weekend. (previously we have been using a modified Battleball board).

I playing gnolls won 2 - 0 vs his divine wind.

Brief summary of the game: First test went quickly and I scored with a safety after he flopped a tackle on that safety. (he had won the face off, only took 10 or so turns to get this score).

Second test, He could not succeed at any roll what so ever the flops loved him, and when he didn't flop he didn't succeed either. All in all not fun for either of us due to luck. Took me a while to score though because I was unsure of how to move the ball forward safely so I stalled at midfield while working on injuring (I took out 3 players) or tying up his players with my hunters. Eventually about 8 of our players (total from both teams) were in a massive scrum infront of the the goal. I could try to pick up the ball, but no one had enough jog to get around the pile up of downed players. Eventually my safety got the ball and used all of his remaining job to manuever around the piles and score.

Overall, luck was a little too important in the second test to get a really good feel for either of the teams. Hopefully we can play some more this weekend. Still itching to try desert dogs