Talk Fantasy Football

I've sometimes seen that the races have been broken down in to 3 tiers, can somebody give me a breakdown of the 21 races and where they stand?

Thanks,

EJ

What kind of tiers are you talking about?
Could you name the 3 tiers?

cheers

There's a basic one in the second post in this topic (though it's a bit old). Ogres can probably be considered tier 3 now, and Chaos tier 2.
Opinions can vary, sometimes quite wildly, over exactly what order the first tier teams rank up in.

By design ... Vampire are Tier 2. Ogre, Goblin, Halfling are Tier 3. All others are supposed to be by design Tier 1.

Galak

GalakStarscraper wrote:By design ... Vampire are Tier 2. Ogre, Goblin, Halfling are Tier 3. All others are supposed to be by design Tier 1.

Galak

I could agree with this as all others stand a pretty good chance at winning more than losing whereas these other 3 tend to be played more for fun than serious play!

It would be good to get a greater split now we are in LRB 5 - possibly tier 1-5 based on average wins vs losses, overall eam peformance and balance etc?

GalakStarscraper wrote:By design ... Vampire are Tier 2. Ogre, Goblin, Halfling are Tier 3. All others are supposed to be by design Tier 1.

Though in practice some teams are more equal than others. Chaos being a prime example of a team lacking (e)quality, whilst Khemri, Orcs and Dwarfs tend to perform better than most. In the long run coaching tends to be the main factor in a team's performance, so any Teir 1 is capable of winning a league. For example, a Chaos team got to the final of the MBBL this season (albeit one with a ridiculous number of stat boosts).

Just to really confuse you, the different playing situations affect the answer!

Whilst no one can disagree with Galak's post (seeing as he pretty much re jiged the teams for LRB5) the truth is nearer to Joemanji's quip about some being more equal than others.

For tournaments using the blunt stats of the NAF (thousands of games), 12 league campaigns and general other play, a bunch of us in the UK who regularly play tourneys, pretty much say there are 11 tier one teams. Then the rest tier 2 until the listed tier 3 by Galak.

No matter what the opinions, the facts prove that the same coaches repeatedly do better with a certain group of teams. Very few decent coaches in a 5, 6 or 7 game tournament are going to tell you that Nurgle and High Elves will stack up against Undead, Dwarves or Amazons for example. Sure once in awhile they will have a good day, but 90% of the time it's the same 11 races "doing the business".

BUT - if your Bloodbowl playing involves very few torneys, uses "long playing" leagues then the answer is going to be different. Some leagues will play 20 maybe 30 games with one race so the team will develop.

I worked out that I played just over 240 desktop games last year (2006) yet I only ever played 14 games with any one team in a league (ECBBL). So my answer will be different to say someone who only plays local league and uses a team for 30 games.

In a typical 12 game season that we play its the same 11 teams that are always the main competive races and its been waaaay to consistent for that to be a fluke. BUT - I bet Galak doesnt play his Bloodbowl in the same environments as I do, so we are likely to disagree if you see what I am saying.

(I hope this post makes sense!)

Actually Lycos I agree with you.

There are teams that we (ie the LRB 5.0 playtesters) referred to during the LRB 5.0 development as being Tier 1.5 ... mainly because in the short run they are not as competitive. Many of the Tier 1.5 teams were added to the disclaimer at the bottom of the teams section of the LRB 5.0 about being more difficult to coach as an acknowledgement of that.

When you consider 1.5 ... it start looking more like:

Tier 1:
Amazon, Chaos Dwarf, Dwarf, Human, Khemri, Lizardmen, Norse, Orc, Skaven, Undead, Wood Elf

Tier 1.5:
Chaos, Dark Elf, Elf, High Elf, Necromantic, Nurgle

Tier 2:
Vampire

Tier 3:
Goblin, Ogre, Halfling

===

Be interested if that matches up to Lycos's list. Anyway ... yes there is a Tier 1.5 ... but it really isn't so much that those teams need changes to make them true Tier 1 as in longer term leagues a lot of those teams do shine and a boost to the Chaos team is planned for LRB 6.0 currently. But yes .. Tier 1.5 does exist in short term leagues .. definitely. And personally I'm okay with that. Trying to get all 17 of those teams to be considered by most "true" Tier 1 would be very difficult and would mean endless ... and somewhat pointless tweaks. In longer leagues I've seen all 6 of those teams do pretty well with LRB 5.0 either from the MBBL or from feedback of LRB 5.0 longer term leagues.

So actually Lycos ... no disagreement at all. Tier 1.5 does exist ... but the important part to me is that its not delibrate (like Tier 2 and 3 are). The teams in 1.5 were not given extra liabilities on purpose to make them them worse ... which is how to me the tiers are seperated.

Galak

This makes more sense, but I have a feeling the Dark Elf team will rise to tier 1 with the LRB 5 changes!

Tritex wrote:This makes more sense, but I have a feeling the Dark Elf team will rise to tier 1 with the LRB 5 changes!

In the tourney scene it definately has! But this has more to do with the changes to fouling (tourney DE teams take just 11 players) rather then the changes in the roster IMO.

Yep, thats pretty much it Galak. It is too early to say but we might see Dark Elves swap with CDs. Some may think that statement a bit far fetched but the changes to LRB5 have really changed the symantecs for CDs and suddenly they seem not the force they were. (as discussed at Eurobowl with some VERY experienced coaches)

By contrast, not just Delves, but Lizards in tourneys are suddenly great at 110. The 6-5-Krox, 3rr line up just glares at you and all of sudden there are double the lizard man teams at tourneys over here.

I just think the initial question is quite hard to answer. A chaos team in a 10 game league is..... well, okay at best.....but after 20 plus games and Warriors and Mino skilled up with Beatsmen maybe rolling some stat increases and mutations everywhere.....well they're gonna rock aren't they?

Lycos wrote:Yep, thats pretty much it Galak. It is too early to say but we might see Dark Elves swap with CDs. Some may think that statement a bit far fetched but the changes to LRB5 have really changed the symantecs for CDs and suddenly they seem not the force they were. (as discussed at Eurobowl with some VERY experienced coaches)

By contrast, not just Delves, but Lizards in tourneys are suddenly great at 110. The 6-5-Krox, 3rr line up just glares at you and all of sudden there are double the lizard man teams at tourneys over here.

I think the removal of the Troll has weakened CDs a great deal. The Troll was a suprisingly reliable blocker in the middle of a melee, and gave the Bulls more freedom to fulfil their Blitzer role.

Not sure what you mean about Lizardmen though. I was using that roster in LRB4, and (as the Krox was cheaper) was getting a point of FF too.

The new fouling rules changed everything, chaos dwarves could dominate because of cheap fodder with dirty player, this doesn't work anymore.
Lizardmen used to be handicapped in lrb 4 by dirty player (the most powerfull skill in the game) as well as they could only take it on sauruses.
The bloodyness of the game has been toned down weakly developed teams (changes to claw and dp, single skills that could cripple non-bashy teams), it has gone up for teams that are willing to invest in a lot of skills like mighty blow, claw and piling on. Since you need skill combos for this (which isn't allowed in most tourneys) in LRB 5 resurrection tourneys agility teams have gotten a boost because causing casualties has gotten harder for the bashers.

The bashy teams were getting in their casualties pretty well at the ArisiaBowl. Check the Tourney Results page:
http://www.geocities.com/arisiabowl/

Cheers,
Mo

Mo wrote:The bashy teams were getting in their casualties pretty well at the ArisiaBowl. Check the Tourney Results page:
http://www.geocities.com/arisiabowl/

Cheers,
Mo

I looked at the results but it doesn't seem so spectacularly high, if I'm interpreting it right. Were fouling cas counted in cas + and - ? What does the fouls column stand for? Fouling cas or fouls attempted?