The flavour of the Bretionian team

[Chris]

So moving away from stats for the minute.

If you were to do a bret team, what would the style be, bearing in mind what it could be like background wise, and what other teams have come out recently (mostly bashing, with elf and vamp being more ag based), what style would the team aim for?

The sources of background as I see them are -
Current wfb army and associated background (don't like it, too 'nice').
Old wfb army and background (far better, basically scum aristos lording it over the peasantry).
General moncharcy era storys (robin hood, musketeirs etc).
'Local' people, teams recruiting and playing for the local (sorta turn of the century sports).
Plus current state of international football.


For the last one it has been commented on that the French have an airy fairy passing game, but not much bite (senegal did in the world cup however best game of the competition I feel ) but still good ball control.

From this people are getting heavily armoured knights and squires in a running game, with peasant linemen thrown in. Others have pointed out why would you have make-wieghts on a team that seriously wants to win, without good reason.

So how about mixing all this together.

I think taking everything into consideration, a style team with more passing than throwing, with a local feel to it (perhaps only 2 stars as it is all the location, plus social hierarchy will allow).

The chance to beat a human team, but to be fair not as good, as they are the professionalls rather than these rustic backwater types.

So from this, leaving aside specifics, sure hands being a common skill amoung the team, higher than average rr cost to reflect their less than top flight performance, and only a couple of blitzers.

Saying all this, I can see why the Orc roster is a popular one, but I think it goes too strong for humans, especially the brettions, who should be trying to beat the elves at the passing game, but not quite there, while behind humans on the bashing game.

[DoubleSkulls]

There's also the issue of how to make the team different enough to justify bothering with a different roster.

That's why I quite like my "All positional players have Dump Off" roster as it is quite different to any existing rosters, and I expect it would play very differently too.

Another "a bit bashier than humans" or "a bit passier than humans" roster isn't really going to cut the grade. On top of that I really don't like the "Knights playing blood bowl" rosters either.

[c9805222]

I also like Ian's dump off team, and came up with a similiar roster (completely seperately when I tried to define them as a flair team).

The problems as I see it are:

Knights often train with sword, shield, lance etc in combat but that doesn't make necessarily make them any good at fist fighting, a docker could probably beat a knight in a ruck, but not in a sword fight.

There aren't any horse's in Bloodbowl, Brettonian knights normally spend alot of time training in this.

their armour is not all that useful in playing bloodbowl, sure it stops them being hurt, but consider it's effects on both their vision and hearing plus their mobbility. Old full plate helmets didn't actually sit on the head but the armour, this meant that when they looked around the helmet stayed still and their vision was limited by the slit in the helmet.

According to the older fluff on Brettonia you had many robber barons and noblemen, who would attract similiar sorts to them (ala the sheriff of Nottingham, sir guy of gisbourne etc), if these groups were to form bloodbowl teams they would almost all exclusively be nobles (although not necessarily rich nobles) sponsered by their lord (the robber baron).

These were the reasons I considered when I decided to make a flair team. The robber knights no longer pillage villages merchants etc, they instead attempt to earn their money (and notority) through playing bloodbowl. However as their armour is less useful on the pitch and they can't use swords etc, they've developed other skills for playing however they're still extravagant, arrogant and skillful hence the difference to a normal team.

This also helps define the Brettonian team whilst keeping it seperate from the current WFB, so you can make it fit with the cyber-fanstasy feel if you want.

In my view the peasants simply wouldn't join teams or have their own team because they're so busy trying to survive in a soceity where the strong (and rich) take what they want.

[Chris]

The more I think about it, the more I like the ag 3 dump off team. Does it simply replace blitzers with dump offers, or is it a bit more radical? (Oh, hang on, I've found it.)

And I take it no ogres allowed? I mean they are so scuffy and un gentlemanly! (Just turkish football players instead no doubt.)

So your roster is:-
0-12 Linemen 6 3 3 8 50k Gen
0-2 Throwers 6 3 3 8 Sure Hands, Dump Off 70k Gen, Pass
0-4 Catchers 8 2 3 7 Catch, Dump Off 70k Gen, Ag
0-4 Blitzers 7 3 3 8 Block, Dump Off 90k Gen, Str
50k rerolls

How about instead
0-12 Linemen 6 3 3 8 50k Gen
0-2 Throwers 6 3 3 8 Sure Hands, Dump Off 70k Gen, Pass
0-4 Catchers 8 2 3 7 Catch, Dump Off 70k Gen, Ag
0-4 Blitzers 7 3 3 8 Dodge, Dump Off 90k Gen (not sure whether st or ag here)
50k rerolls

Now it is all ball work with a blocking game having to be developed.

[DoubleSkulls]

I dunno about the dodging blitzers. Maybe give them tackle instead of block? That's much easier to justify the 90k price tag too.

[Chris]

Tackle would make them good hunters of gtter runners etc and hopefully increase their ball possession. If you wanted to emphasise this further why not strip ball as well?

[Starblayde]

I agree with the idea that knights playing BB [edit] as whole teams [/edit] is dumb, as they are generally frenchy-snobbish types. I reckon they would, however, use the odd knight as a blitzer. If the Dragon Princes can play, then why not a knight or two?

To make them "less bashy than humans", decrease their blitzer allowance to 2 or 3, and to make them "less passy than elves" give them more/cheaper catchers, or an agile squire position.

[DanielLaw]

Hi everyone,

First post, so be gentle...

I really like some of the ideas suggested here. I used to play a Bretonnian team with the human roster, (the Orc roster seems too heavily armoured and bashy for my liking), but I'd also like to see an official Bretonnian roster at some point (4 elf teams, why not 4 human teams...?).
Please accept my apologies if this is a little too similar to the sort of thing others have suggested.


0-12 Linemen 40,000 6 3 3 7 - {Gen}
0-2 Runners 50,000 6 3 3 7 Sure Hands {Gen, Passing}
0-4 Blitzers 90,000 7 3 3 8 Pro {Gen, Agility}
0-2 Blockers 100,000 6 3 3 9 Dauntless, Pro {Gen, Strength}
50k re-rolls.

I like the idea of the blitzers and blockers (blitzers especially) being arrogant guys who think they can do anything (i.e. Pro), and the blockers being real St. George 'dragon slayer' types. I'd also like to see the statline kept very human (AG=3, ST<=3, MA=>6). I think there's quite a lot of versatiliy in how this team can develop.

I'd like to hear your comments.
Thanks.

gaijin

[Chris]

I think pro should always be a skill you develope into. Remember that yours is a starting team, why would they already be proffessionals? Also think what the long term effect of that will be. The first few games will be a hell of a lot safer, think of the amount of dodges and blocks that will be a lot easier.

Also, what overall character are you aiming for? A competent polished all round performance? Or something else.

Also, think of what teams have come out recently, they all tend to be fairly hard. Yours isn't quite there as it has the angle of a lot less foul ups by the players and no block, but it's still pretty good.

I agree though that the Orc roster doesn't quite fit. It almost does in some reguards if you want a well hard bashing human team. But it's just they seem a bit too hard, and has been pointed out those knights are't famous for their unarmed fighting skills.

[c9805222]

See, I wanted to get away from both the current WFB fluff and back to the older style, and the idea of knights on a BB field, therefore I designed a roster for flair, players with dump off on most and leap on the catchers, Ian futher designed this to just dump off players.

If you take a simplified feudal soceity, you'll have a duke who has a number of Baron's under him who have to pay taxes and provide an armed force. to this end the Baron supports a number of knights who in turn perform services for him and possibly have their own contingent of armed forces.

In the more modern world of Bloodbowl there are less wars, so the Duke decides he wants to sponsor a Bloodbowl team, the Barons then have to provide the players, suddenly being knight no longer pays the bills so the knights and later generations become Bloodbowl players their own soldiers (squires, men at arms etc) become their linemen. As I've already pointed out many of the knights skills (and his armour) won't be particularly useful on the BB pitch. So they have developed a new style of play. However being that knights are renowned glory chasers (look at Lancelot in the Bernard Cornwell novels and the knights the film A Knights tale) they have developed lots of flash and flair skills and plays.

Basically the knights (BB players) run the same risk of being sacked for under performing and it can be very costly to maintain the lifestyle Brettonians were renowned for. Additionally the Baron(s) don't want to upset their liege lord by giving him duff players as they'll have to pay more in tax, and in extreme circumstances may find their titles stripped. In this way no peasants actually join the team, it is made up of professional Bloodbowlers the lineman being basic men at arms types and the positional players being the knights but with a different and flair based style.

Sorry for the rambling and if the post doesn't make complete sense but I think you can see what I'm getting at.

[DanielLaw]

I think pro should always be a skill you develope into. Remember that yours is a starting team, why would they already be proffessionals?

That's fair enough. I guess your probably right.
My idea was to suggest something a little new. I thought the idea of a free-flowing style, encouraging the coach to take more risks, seemed to fit with the Bretonnian mentality. I wanted to reflect the possibility that these players (Knights, Barons, whatever) were well-trained, all-round good individual players, who wouldn't turn down the challenge of any area of the pitch. I thought it would be nice if they were arrogant enough to want to do everything - ball-carrier, catcher, blitzer, even thrower! I envisiged that perhaps they had invested their lavish wealth in hiring the best coaches and trainers to school them in the art of blood-bowl, and hence they were a little less prone to make mistakes. I wanted to suggest that they were good, skillful players, without resorting to stat increases or prescribing particular skills that wouldn't quite fit this idea.
Still, I take your point that pro includes the description "hardened professional" and that it seems a little out of place on a starting roster.

Also, what overall character are you aiming for? A competent polished all round performance? Or something else.

A running team, but not a bashy one. I feel that the balance of the new experiental teams is a little too bashy. Perhaps this team is a little like Skaven, but with much less speed and a little more resilience. Less passing, but still plenty of flair through movement and the combination of agility skills and pro on the blitzers. I wanted the coach to have the option of developing a passing game, but with more difficulty that the human team.

Thanks for the feedback.

gaijin

[DanielLaw]

pro includes the description "hardened professional"

Apologies: meant to write "hardened veteran", which is what the description actually says.

gaijin