Games Day anyone? (Now with added Khorne roster)

[GalakStarscraper]

Galak, I'd like to simply say this:

I like the fluff image I get with this team

I like the mass frenzy

I like that this team is different to the others (including Norse - Norse are reliable)

I like that this is not Claw-PoMB

I like that this is not overpowered

Thanks Nazgob ...that is pretty much my list as well for the team.

[Anglakhel]

It's an interesting roster and I'm excited to see how it plays on the pitch.

I just wish it wasn't a Daemons of Khorne roster. Had it been called something else I could probably be 100% in favor of the roster.

I'd be perfectly fine with it if they called it a Devotees of Khorne roster and it was the exact same stats but used Khorne devoted Humans comprising all the positions under various Khorne-y names and the Bloodthirster was a CW Champion of Khorne.

That would sit much better with me.

But if you're going to use Khorne Daemons, you've got to give this team some real Strength.

Remove Pass access. Remove Agility access. Put Frenzy on every single positional as a negatrait. Continue to use Horns and Juggs to raise level of Positionals, but restrict the real value since they only affect one Blitz.

It doesn't have to be all ClPOMB to be a scary roster, but if there is any team that should be devoted to killing over all else, it should be Khorne.

I think to do this roster right would really require a larger project. You would need to take the vanilla Chaos roster, Chaos Pact, Nurgle, and add the three other Chaos powers. Revise the base Chaos roster to make it less ClPOMB. Make it Beastmen of Chaos. Then split up the Chaos craziness amongst the 4 Ruinous Powers. Khorne should end up in the role of the most potentially deadly, but hindered by mass Frenzy and limited skill access to hold back their ball play.

Anyway . . . It's easy to be an armchair developer and an entirely other thing to have to deal with the real world politics involved in this imperfect situation.

I commend Galak and the team he worked with for giving the community an interesting roster that doesn't seem overpowered or abusive. I think you all did an admirable job considering the complicated restrictions you had to deal with from Cyanide/GW. I'd rather it wasn't Khorne, but I'm sure we could have ended up with far worse.

[Dr. Von Richten]

Pff what b*tching all around, give the guy some (and by some, I mean 'a lot of') credit. Is it a 'perfect' Khorne roster? No, probably not. But really, when Galak says "if I had chosen not to get involved, things would have been much worse", why second-guess him? He has put far too much time and energy in this game to go and do something that's not the best he could think of given the circumstances which he can't talk about. Just take the man at his word. Or just come out and say you think he's lying. Discussion is pretty futile otherwise anyway.

I'm not terribly enthousiastic about the roster, but at least it's something different than what's already there, and I can interpret the Khorne fluff in such a way that 'mass Frenzy' makes sense.

And last but not least: at the World Cup there was this Spanish dude called Festen, who made an Orc team with 15 linemen and gave as many of them Frenzy as he could (i.e. 7 on day 3)! I'm glad you thought of him when you made this roster.

[Hitonagashi]

It's an interesting roster and I'm excited to see how it plays on the pitch.

I just wish it wasn't a Daemons of Khorne roster. Had it been called something else I could probably be 100% in favor of the roster.

I'd be perfectly fine with it if they called it a Devotees of Khorne roster and it was the exact same stats but used Khorne devoted Humans comprising all the positions under various Khorne-y names and the Bloodthirster was a CW Champion of Khorne.

That would sit much better with me.

+1 on this. Generally, I'm looking forward to trying it, I just feel the fluff doesn't fit (and I understand this isn't the fault of Galak necessarily, just how it is). I wanted to see something based on the Savage Orc roster, so I'm happy with that.

To those saying it's horribly underpowered, if this ever hits FUMBBL (L or R/B), I'll happily take anyone on with a non-tier 1 race and think I've got a good chance of winning. I believe I could get a 65%+ win percentage with this team in the Box, which while it isn't saying much, and it's not as high as I'd expect to get with a T1 (which is 75%+) at least says something about the competitive nature.

[Smeborg]

So far the naysayers seem to be arguing mainly (or solely) on the basis of WHFB "fluff", with a separate argument in the background that the Khorne team has been designed by a 3rd party.

As said in my first post on this thread, the team does not fit my initial image of what a Khorne team should be, but so what? I got over that, as I have done for other teams that deliberately didn't/don't fit the WHFB "fluff" (Necros, Slann etc.). I don't think it's entirely safe to argue on the basis of "fluff" accuracy. For example, Ghouls are now Undead players in WHFB (with Regen etc.). Does that mean we should change the Ghoul player in BB? This also shows that as a general rule, the BB "fluff" is more stable over time than the WHFB "fluff". But no doubt GW will be very pleased that BB coaches are so in love with the WHFB "fluff" that they have difficulty contemplating a slight departure from it! Maybe you guys are all keen WHFB players too (I am not).

Khorne is not the first team to be designed by a 3rd party. IIRC the Lizardmen team was designed by a fan in 3rd Edition days (I forget his name).

All the best.

[Shteve0]

Hi Smeborg

I fear you may have overlooked a couple of potentially legitimate complaints in your summary. The first is that, after the CRP purge, there are few unique positional names left in the rulebook (just look at the norse position name overhaul for example). The names and player choice on this roster bear the hallmarks of being selected by a 40k/WHFB fanboy or a moron marketing exec (not that the two are mutually exclusive). If you gave me a perfectly playable new BB roster with 0-16 Space Marines, 0-4 Necrons and 0-2 Dreadnaughts, I’d bitch and moan to the end of the earth.

Likewise, the idea of A-access dwarves is pretty unpalatable, and I think one can realistically see where the complaint about A-access Bloodletters and P access [khorne] linemen being counter to the fluff is coming from, whether one agrees with it or not.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the roster is not interesting in isolation, but I’d suggest that the majority of the negative reception to it is not because it’s underpowered but because it’s counter to the appropriate access and skills intuitive to the Khorne association.

No criticism of Galak here, since he’s been bold in coming forward as being part of the process (many others who will have been involved have not, and while I suspect I know two of the others I won’t out them here) and is unable to really defend himself due to the NDA. I totally accept that his hands are at least partly tied and that in his position it’s admirable of him to give up his time and offer his not inconsiderable expertise to the cause in the interest of ensuring the power level is appropriate and the roster is interesting playstyle wise. However, with that in mind, I don't believe that his involvement or that of others whose efforts I appreciate undermine the value of BB players debating the relevance of the team. I don't really accept the "Galak was involved, it's support for BB, stop being ungrateful" line (and I'm not suggesting that this is what you're saying, but others have made this argument) as a screen to censure community criticism of some of the decisions implemented here.

a) I've never expected everyone to like work that I'm involved in. I'd like to think that folks that like this team are doing so because they actually like it ... not because I helped. Which is my way of saying "I agree with you ... my name should NEVER to be stamp of goodnesses. The product should speak for itself"
b) Your complaint about the names of the 4 player positions. Heard. Understood. (and hopefully saying it that way is clear enough).

Cheers

S

[Corvidius]

Smeborg: Andy Meechan designed the Lizards, I blame him every time I lose with them or they beat me.

I can actually see good reasons for agility access on players from a combat/killer background. Dodge is an essential combat technique, Jump Up is a staple of Martial Arts movies, Sidestep shows an awareness of positioning and it's importance in fighting, Catch bears at least a little resemblance to parrying in that they are both about intercepting an incoming blow. Diving Tackle seems fair, Sprint seems reasonable for a warrior getting to the right place at the right time, Sneaky Git is clearly more of a sneak kill or coup de grace, Leap again is a Martial Arts thing to me, Diving Catch is about the only one that gives me a little pause once I stretch my imagination a little.

[Smeborg]

Hi Smeborg

I fear you may have overlooked a couple of potentially legitimate complaints in your summary. The first is that, after the CRP purge, there are few unique positional names left in the rulebook (just look at the norse position name overhaul for example). The names and player choice on this roster bear the hallmarks of being selected by a 40k/WHFB fanboy or a moron marketing exec (not that the two are mutually exclusive). If you gave me a perfectly playable new BB roster with 0-16 Space Marines, 0-4 Necrons and 0-2 Dreadnaughts, I’d bitch and moan to the end of the earth.

Likewise, the idea of A-access dwarves is pretty unpalatable, and I think one can realistically see where the complaint about A-access Bloodletters and P access [khorne] linemen being counter to the fluff is coming from, whether one agrees with it or not.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the roster is not interesting in isolation, but I’d suggest that the majority of the negative reception to it is not because it’s underpowered but because it’s counter to the appropriate access and skills intuitive to the Khorne association.

I agree that the naming of player types for this new team is open to criticism and counter to recent naming trends in BB. I also agree that the team plays in a way that is counter to my and other coaches' "expectations of Khorne". And in general, I agree that the imaginative side of the game is quite important. But at the same time, I think these are minor quibbles in the general scheme of things. I have got over them, in the same way that I have got over the idea of Space Frogs descending into the WHFB universe, or ditto for ideas from Hammer House of Horror (Golems and Werewolves). I don't own or control the BB universe, I accept that others can and will introduce teams, players and other ideas that I may not like at first glance. It's up to me to adapt.

All the best.

[Kikurasis]

Because the folks who I respect that play this game deserved something better than they probably would have received without it. In defense of the game, I'd rather do all I can to make something that is not exactly what I would have done without restraint but am happy with than to know I took the coward's way out and didn't help when I could and saddled the game with something that I know is unbalanced and would damage it.

This quote alone has me respect you and all the work you've done for BB -- both past and present. The team might not be perfect, but what you did was all anyone who plays could of asked of anyone in that position.

Thank you.

[Digger Goreman]

...Andy Meechan designed the Lizards....

Sigh... wish I didn't know....

[Juriel]

Some people certainly take their fluff more seriously than GW ever did...

I want unicorn back with the Zons!

[barnacle111]

Simply, I like it. It's different. If the stats don't fit the ideas you have of khorne, then why not use stand in models? How about a bunch of crazys from a nut house who have spikes on their heads? Just a thought.

[spubbbba]

I quite like the idea of a team similar to Vampires, they are the only tier 2 team so I don’t think having a 2nd would break the game.

I think it would be interesting to give the letters ST4 and either wild animal or bloodlust as both of those are suitably Khornate. With bloodlust the pit fighters would be thralls and rather than biting them the letters would be attacking them in a frenzied offering to Khorne. Frenzy is a must too, but other skills or stats could be dropped to make them more balanced.

I don’t know if we need Heralds and could have 0-4 or 0-6 Bloodletters instead the only issue is horns being a bit too good with ST4 but I’d say that was less of a fluff inconsistency than what we have now. You could argue that the letter horns are more for decoration and not suited to ramming.

Where is the original roster by the way? I’d like to see that, I can imagine how horribly overpowered GW made it as they did the same with Daemons in WHFB 7th edition and Grey Knights in 40K 5th edition to promote them.

[kerrygray8]

I like playing with toy soldiers

I think the roster is intriguing, really not fussed about the semantics of player names, etc.

However, the idea that 2 Halflings could gang up and get a 1-dice Block against a BloodLetter is clearly laughable from a fluff perspective - the 'Letter should rip them apart (and their 6 mates) before they can even bring their pudgy fists to bear. Thus, the Halfling roster is clearly overpowered and - more importantly - doesn't have enough rules for Sticky Buns

I'm really only a casual player, so all my opinions are probably rubbish

[Heff]

Lets face it, from a fluff perspective the team would arrive, kill the crowd,bath in their blood and stack their skulls on the pitch. Arguments that this or that doesn't fit the fluff are pointless as the whole bleedin TEAM doesn't fit the fluff anyway!