The Great Roster Cull

[Darkson]

4 fluffy roster's dedicated to the 4 powers, but I'd only use them in leagues involving themselves.
Current nurgle is probably OK, the Quorn roster is definitely not.

[nonumber]

The four powers could simply be tweaks of a single base Chaos roster. Same base with maybe 0-2 exclusive positionals for each power that come with their own unique skills. Or maybe just the Chaos Warriors/Big Guy could be different.

Everyone hates on Dwarfs but Undead are just as bad for me. Dwarfs I agree are too strong even though I've been playing them all year. Maybe rather than having Linemen with Block/Tackle, Tackle could be switched to the Blitzers making it's use a bit more of a tactical one. I don't really see the need for them to have Thick Skull, either. Undead should only have 2 Ghouls. That would be a start.

Not a roster I know, but I would get rid of the Guard skill. It's boring. slows down the game and can just turn into an arms race. Maybe it could be an extraordinary skill for certain big guys instead or something but when spammed it's just tedious.

[spubbbba]

Personally I think we have enough rosters and shouldn't add any more. I've yet to see a new roster even half as good as the worst roster we do have.

In fact I'd cut down what we do have to 20.

Necros would go as they are less interesting than undead and I'd get rid of Khemri too since they were poor from day 1. But I would tweak the undead roster by allowing them to take werewolves instead of mummies and if they didn't have any zombies (so no raise the dead) or ghouls I'd allow them to have up to 4 wights. That way you could make a khemri type team or a fast undead team with the wolves since they were the only thing that made the necros special (golems were pointless).

I'd drop the pro elf roster and rename high elves to elfs. That way you could use either model set but the high elf roster is better IMO.

The last team to drop is tricky and is a toss up between ogres and amazons. I like the fluff of amazons but hate the current roster and haven't seen any really good replacements. If Ogres remained I'd drop them to 130K and allow 0-8.

Other changes would be orcs losing goblins and human blitzers going to 80K with catchers being AV8 and ogres 130K. I'd leave dwarfs alone as they are good at low TV but very 1 dimensional and struggle above 1700. If you are going to take away skills or AV you'd need to give them the ability to actually move the ball a bit faster.

[Thadrin]

My one removal would be a merger of the Undead and Necro rosters - probably just rename the Undead Mummies as Flesh Golems and remove skeletons from the Undead, then delete Necro (despite my recent decent levels of success with them).

Then there's be some tweaks, probably in line with PLasmoid's CRP+ (NOT the NTBB - only the stuff that Galak and Doubleskulls have "endorsed", which I pretty much agree with being good ideas.)

I'd be fine with adding the Ape roster as experimental for now, as part of the process we saw back in the vault days with all the other new teams.

Khorne? meh. Really don't care. Don't like the roster that much, though it doesn't fill me with the same bile it does certain others. I do think it could have been done a lot better - Thanks Granny and Cyanide. Other powers? If you REALLY must I suppose they could be looked at....Hypno Gaze/disturbing presence Slaanesh could be amusing They could prove amusing. If all four powers got rosters then I'd remove the Chaos roster.

I really think anything radical would be a huge error.

[RogueThirteen]

Out: Amazon, Norse, Chaos, Chaos Dwarf, Dwarf, Elf, Dark Elf, Wood Elf, Undead, Khemri, Skaven, Orc, Chaos Pact, Khorne

Keep: High Elf, Necromantic, Lizardmen, Goblin, Halfling, Vampire, Ogre, Human, Nurgle, Underworld, Slann

Add: Troll (and most of us from this thread, myself included, would be on the team )


Seriously, though, you can have my Necromantic and High Elf teams when you pry them out of my cold, dead hands.

[burgun824]

Personally I think we have enough rosters and shouldn't add any more. I've yet to see a new roster even half as good as the worst roster we do have.

I'd type out my thoughts but spubbbba pretty much already did in his thread above. I agree with about 95% of what he said. I'd keep Zons over Ogres but the roster would need a buff. I'd also bump human and WE catchers to ST3 and make them available at 0-2.

[Daht]

I wouldn't remove any teams, but tweak some. This is assuming no rules changes to skills..


Humans: blitzers 80k, catchers 80k with +1 av and nerves of steel added

Dwarves: remove thick skull, troll slayers lose block gain juggernaut to start

Goblins: add position: 0-4 snotlings (stats as with ogres).. allow snotlings being the weakest and most picked on, to 'take the fall' for secret weapon ejections if they are in the reserves box.. (chainsaw goblin runs to the dugout drops chainsaw on snotling and everyone agrees he's the guy)

Amazons: catchers 8 2 3 7 catch dodge (old humans). blitzers 7337 wrestle dodge 100k

Halflings: add 0-4 catchesr 6 2 4 6 dodge, stunty for 50k

khemri: tomb guardians: -decay 110k

Underworld: 0-4 skaven linemen

Khorne (yes I like them overall): remove P access on pit fighters, add +1 str, -1 ag to heralds at 110k

[Dr. Von Richten]

I'm so happy none of you guys designed the current rules!

[Digger Goreman]

Wow... what wit-ful insight... well, half way....

Back when people were "kicking" around rules for field goals a thought was embedded in my mind (no, field goals are not a good idea imho):

"What if we scored the "blood" along with the "bowl"?" Elves, skaven, et al., get to do all their super avoidance scoring of TDs, while (say) Khemri and Ogres are filling up the casualty box.... Indeed, as a tangential observation, the Card Game somewhat reflects this in its scoring methods.... So, TD's worth 3 pts and CAS's worth 2 pts....

Example: In my last game (Khemri vs Undead), the game ended in a regulation tie 0-0... (Blitzer succeeded the 1-tackle-zone-dodge and tripped going into open field )... but would have been a 6-4 win based on casualties....

I'm thinking that may be the only way to incorporate the Avoidance-vs-Bash schism that's always existed in the game... and might render the obvious-to-oblivious design flaws moot... as long as teams have every opportunity to win to their strengths....

Any logical, reasoned, thoughts?

[Digger Goreman]

Necros would go as they are less interesting than undead.... ...Wolves... they were the only thing that made the necros special (golems were pointless).

I understand that these are your opinions, and I respect that.... Still I've found Necros the best balanced team (and maybe a little gimped) and quite challenging.... Due to prohibitive costs, you can't get all your positionals and have 3 rerolls (and on a team with no ball control player rerolls)... and you sure as hell can't play without linemen.... The team is a struggle till around the 8-12 game mark... or so I've found in my ~7 years of playing them now.... Necros lack rapid access to needed skills (both blocking and ball getting) and their best players (wolves) are a train wreck waiting to happen till they get at least blodge... and it takes a double or two to make them fearsome....

Golems... people hate 'em and people love 'em... I'm in the love column despite their problematic advancement.... Still, I love starting Stand Firm and worked up a couple of wights with SF alongside the Fleshies.... That made an awesome screen for the wolves to motor down the sidelines.... So, meh!, give me Flesh Golems!!! Also, Mummies are a St5 "Big Guy" without a negatrait.... That's a little too good....

A unified Undead/Necro team with all the options? Oh, yeah!!! But could you possibly balance it?

[Darkson]

I'd also add the Black Dwarf (i.e. "proper" Chaos Dwarfs, not those stupid Big Hat ones) that I designed for MBBL2, though they might need a little tweak (as they were designed for LRB4-era).
Another for my house rule thread....

[Rolex]

I'm so happy none of you guys designed the current rules!

This. Nuffle be praised.

[Smeborg]

So, let me sum up the consensus:

"We should expand the number of teams to double or more, we should shrink the number of teams to half or less, we should include Khorne, we should exclude Khorne, we should ban teams that do not fit the fluff, we should include teams like Apes because they fit the fluff."

Good luck with that. At least it has the makings of a good comedy sketch.

A simple solution is to have a system of "divisions", as suggested by someone already.

A division: the 21-25 existing teams (or thereabouts), plus playtested future teams. The core for leagues and tournaments.
B division: 4 or so Daemon teams as per 4th/Gold edition (designed to play against each other only)
C division: 4 or so Dwarf teams (designed to play against each other only, I remember this from one of the old BB mags)
D-G divisions: more teams designed to play against each other only, and so on ad infinitum
H division: for House-ruled: include or exclude any or all of the above, add your own teams as you see fit

I think this would keep almost everyone happy. Of course it's not a million miles from what we have...

All the best

[Darkson]

I remember playing in a PBeM Dwarf league using those BB magazine rules. It was good fun (I had the one with 6 runners, no Blitzer and no slayers).

[Digger Goreman]

So, let me sum up the consensus:[blah, blah, etc.]

Of course there is no consensus... read the original post... the intent of the thread is to lay a fertile ground for thoughts... not summaries of what can not be summarized....