Come see the breakdown on how to build a winning team in Blood Bowl, featuring the soon to be released Naggaroth Nightmares.
The newest team re-vamp for Blood Bowl has been announced for release, “Coming Soon”. The agile and malicious Dark Elves. While the team rules have been available for some time, many players have waited until the new team kit to come out before diving into Blood Bowl.
I am a big fan of the Dark Elf team in Blood Bowl. Especially in Cyanide Studios’ Blood Bowl 2. With the Dark Elves getting a new team kit, and saving me the headache of converting a full team, I am very hyped for this impending release. So, I thought this would be a golden opportunity to put out some tips and tactics for the cutthroat cousins of the High Elves and Elven Union.
First off, let’s get into the Dark Elves as a team. Who are they, and how do they play?
Let’s go over to Blood Bowl Tactica and get the long and short of it, since they can put it better than I could: 
Evil beyond belief, skilled without doubt, the Dark Elves take to the pitch to show the world their superiority. Dark Elf teams prefer a malevolent and spiteful running game over the passing of their goodly cousins. Backed up by the ruthless Witch Elves and dangerous assassins, a Dark Elf team has all the tools to power through rather than around any opposition line.
Read more: Dark Elf Teams https://bbtactics.com/dark-elf-teams/
Sounds nasty! Dark Elves are probably the hardest Elven team to coach in Blood Bowl, but they do have some good perks and positions. While the Dark Elves don’t have the biggest movement allowances like other Elves, they do make up for it with high agility all around, access to good blitzers, fairly cheap linemen (for Elves), and their best players, the Witch Elves. These lethal ladies are the lynchpin for Dark Elf teams, starting off with 3 really good skills, and the agility 4 that all Dark Elves posses, the Witch Elves will be your best bet to get things done.
That brings us to my first point when building a Dark Elves Roster: always have at least one Witch Elf in your roster. Dodge, Frenzy, and Jump Up make for an amazing utility kit. With a few levels, Witch Elves become absolute monsters. So, you’ll want to set up key plays that let them earn some Star Player Points (SPP).
Blitzers can also be very useful because of their higher armor value, which is 8, and they start off with the Block skill. Block allows you to negate the effects of the “Both Down” dice result, which can be very useful in avoiding a turn over because of a poor tackle roll. I usually include at least one Blitzer, and try to get them some SPP quickly so they can get a second ability that lets them have more utility. 
The other unique positional the Dark Elves have is the Assassin. This guy or gal is a mean machine on the field, but they are very risk-reward. Assassins come with 2 skills, Shadowing and Stab. Shadowing gives the Assassin the chance to follow an opposing player when they move out of the Assassin’s tackle zone, which can be handy for keeping the pressure on your enemy. Stab is why you take Assassins, it’s an alternate attack that can be used instead of a block. If you penetrate the opposing player’s armor, you make an immediate injury roll, that ignores injury modifiers. This can be extremely useful for getting lighter armored players off the field, but Stab does not allow SPP to be gained. Making the Assassin very hard to level up. And with his cost being 100k, they are an expensive player.
So let’s get to making a roster. This is my personal view of how to make a Dark Elf team, so I might prioritize things differently than others. Personally, I place a pretty high value on re-rolls, something hard to come by with such expensive players. I’m also going to work within the confines of what will be in the team box, assuming that the average person isn’t willing to buy 2 boxes, or extra players before playing the team for the first time.
There hasn’t been an official release for what comes in the box, but from the announcement video and photos, we can clearly see what the box will contain. 6 linemen, 2 blitzers, 2 runners, and 2 witch elves. Working with these models this is what we get.
- 8 linemen (using the two runners as extra linemen)
- 1 blitzer
- 2 witch elves
- 2 re-rolls, 1 assistant coach, 1 fan factor ( assistant coaches and fan factor give modifiers to kick off events and pre game variables, personally I prefer having these, but are not needed)
That gets us an even value for our one million budget. Runners aren’t really needed unless you really want one. I exclude them because Witch Elves can do everything they can and you want to focus SPP gain on them. Scoring touchdowns is a sure way to do this, rather than relying on bashing opposing players and hoping for good roils. And having the funds for 2 re-rolls is huge for Dark Elves, when most teams start off with one, or maybe none. 2 re-rolls can really even the playing field against teams you might normally have trouble with.
Best of luck out on the field!
You can catch me four nights a week here, Jack of Clubs Painting on Twtich. I also create YouTube tutorials as well under Jack of Clubs Painting.
About the Author: Wyatt Turk
