Do I need a Skaven Renegade with my Chaos Pact?

[rvlvr]

Too many idiots here, totally missed the point on the 6 4 4 8 team, and think 6 3 3 7 is better than 5 3 3 9. I was trying to help the OP by telling him that the linerat is no good but the idiots want to be heard. No more posting on tactics anymore for me, byebye fools.

= profit.

[voyagers_uk]

Too many idiots here, totally missed the point on the 6 4 4 8 team, and think 6 3 3 7 is better than 5 3 3 9. I was trying to help the OP by telling him that the linerat is no good but the idiots want to be heard. No more posting on tactics anymore for me, byebye fools.

= profit.

QFT!

6 3 3 7 is not necessarily better than 5 3 3 9 which of course wasn't what you said.... BYeBYE to you too....

[mattgslater]

I'm just not going to treat a troll like a troll, man. I'm responding to this like he's serious.

Dude! Let me have 0-1 Hobgoblin on my Orcs! What's a lineman? Who needs an MA5 piece when you've got 9 tanks and a Thrower? That doesn't make the Hobgoblin a better player: offer me either on a Skaven team and watch how fast I take the Orc.

Though, to be fair, the proper analogy is a Human Lineman. And yeah, the Human Lineman is a better player, because if AV>7, then +MA>+AV. I'd still take the Orc on a fast team.

And that there is the point. CP has no players with MA above 6 except that one Rat. He doesn't need to be exceptional: he just needs to be MA7 and something better than completely useless. Hey, look at that, he's ST3, AG3 with GM access. Fait accompli.

You go ahead thinking that balance doesn't matter, that a few people want to win all the time and the others want to yukk it up and blithely get creamed because they like the models. That's silly. I want to be able to play aggressively and still feel challenged by a lesser opponent, and I also want to be able to show up with the big guns and go up against other, different big guns. BB's brand of balance does that nicely.

Comparing BB to WFB fairly screams out that you don't know what you're talking about. Different games, different genres of game, different skill-sets, different mind-sets. There are similarities (both are turn-based and may allow you to move all your pieces in a turn, both use GW fluff, some of the same people were involved in both), but mostly these similarities are superficial. In my (considerable) experience with BB people and WFB people, there's not a lot of overlap. Those who get into both tend to drop one.

[Warpstone]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm now pretty happy with replacing the rat with a marauder at this point in the team's development. Just to put it in context, I'm at TV200+ and in the non-rookie division of our league. So all the TV200+ bash teams means that the prevalence of Mighty Blow+Block makes it really hard to even get the Skaven to the point where he can build some nice skills. Plus, there is also the added bonus that I now have an extra mook marauder to soak up the claw+MB+piling on combos that you see at this level. The rookie rat used to never see the pitch due to AV7 and experienced marauders had to take the LOS pummeling in his place.

So, just to address the idea about the Rat's usefulness on the team: he definitely provides diminishing returns at high TV. However, I should point out that he was otherwise handy in early games until about TV175 (which seems to be the Mendoza line for AV7 anyway).

[Deathwing]

Personally I like to use the Skaven. ( Put me in the 'bad-player-idiot camp' ). Why not have the MA7? It gives you something extra. As a receiver with a passing developed marauder he's more than useful. Mine (with extra arms as first skill) has scored 4 TDs over my first 8 league games which I think is a pretty useful return. (The skaven has held up pretty well in tournie play too).
If you're receiving a kick off with 2 or 3 turns to score, I can't see how a single skilled marauder is in any way a better player to field than an extra-armed skaven. I guess my point is that it's not just a skaven linerat, it's a skaven linerat with mutation access on a normal skill roll. Animosity is the trade off, not a factor at all if he's either receiving a hand-off or catching.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

He cant get guard mb or po

[Deathwing]

He cant get guard mb or po

Well that's screwed my plan to develop him as a receiver then. Silly me.

[mattgslater]

He cant get guard mb or po

See, for Jimmy that's 3 of the 5 skills in the game.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Well not quite Matt, there is Block, Dodge, Surehands, Tackle, Dirty Player, Claw, Mighty Blow, Piling On, Guard, Tentacles, Sidestep, Jump Up,Frenzy, Wrestle and Fend. 15 skills is quite a lot!

[Smurf]

A fast player is always nice.

Wrestle, Tackle combe for the rat would be good.

[RogueThirteen]

I probably would not take the rat on a Pact team, though I've also turned down +1MA level-ups every time I have rolled them.

But all this means is that there are choices in the game that coaches need to make (meaningful choices are, of course, a common criterion for good games). And coaches have to make these choices based on their own play style, their own interpretation of the league they are in, and what they enjoy or want out of their team.

Bloodbowl is a complex enough system that there are no objectively right answers to almost all of the serious strategy questions*. Some players don't choose to take a certain player, some players do. Some players choose a particular starting rosters, others vary it. And so on. All this shows is that the coaches out there are making these meaningful decisions in different ways. It does not mean one camp is right and the other camp is wrong (or "idiots").

And this, to me, is just a hallmark of a great game. If every faction and every decision had a cookie-cutter answer, then something would be lacking. I can say out of the many, many various games I've played (miniatures, board, card) that no other game in my gaming experience has ever provided so many decisions and versatility (20+ competitive teams, lots of skill choices, etc.) and been so well-balanced in a competitive league setting. Sure, a handful of the teams are intentionally not as competitive, but that provides a valued challenge for experienced coaches.

Personally, I've got nothing but admiration and appreciation for everyone involved who turned the very problematic 3rd Edition into the CRP. And I'm bummed there probably won't ever be a LRB7.




*obviously this excludes clearly absurd questions like "Can my Ogre Team take the cup without Ogres?"