Thinking ahead: NTBB 2013

[plasmoid]

Hi all,
thinking out loud may be dangerous. And it is worth noting that any feedback generated from this thread will be considered secondary to the feedback coming from the actual playtesters. Anyway, here are my thoughts on NTBB 2013. At this point I'm just thinking out loud. I'm still awaiting feedback from the New Zealand League, the Daventry League as well as the first few games of Tournament 2.

But this is where I'm at:
The CRP+ List
So far, I consider this pretty solid. The first few items appear to be working out well. The remaining ones (mainly Spiralling Expenses and Bank) won't really be properly tested until I can launch NTBBL in december. But from where I'm sitting right now it all looks good.

...[Edit]: After discussing the NZCL feedback with Ian and Galak, SG's interaction with Babes will not change for now. But the Bank rule will be modified to combine with the Petty Cash rule.

NTBB Rosters
Orcs
90K blitzers seems very straightforward and uncontroversial.

Wood Elf
I've had some wood elf coaches claiming that this drops them into tier 2, due to loss of mobility. Personally, I doubt it. Nicolai did very well in tournament 1, but on the other hand, he is a world class wood elf coach, and he did land some rather extraordinary stat increases. As I consider Leap to be their signature skill, so either Block or Dodge will have to go.

Alternative: If the nerf turns out to have been too harsh, then I'm leaning towards Fend/Dodge/Leap.

Undead
Feedback from the 2 "live" leagues has been that the Undead nerf is minute - and with G-access it might end up as a net buff.
Alternative: I'm inclined to just cut the G-access. The improved fouling is a stealth buff for a bashy team with cheap linemen, so Undead coaches will have to make do with that.

Dwarf
Still thinking - but Dwarfs are very likely to not undergo any further changes for NTBB2013
Alternative: If the nerf turns out to have been too harsh, I'm leaning towards replacing juggernaught with Wrestle on the slayers - even if it isn't very deadly.

Amazon
Still thinking - but Amazons are very likely to not undergo any further changes for NTBB2013

Human
It's a small buff, but for what I've seen on the pitch, it's a welcome one.
I like it.

Khemri
I like the flavour - it makes them more than bashers.
But I need to keep an eye on just how powerful they are. It may be a problem that Tourach is playing them in T2. He can make anything look good. Tourach, you'll have to keep me posted as the tournament moves along. The Break Tackle version was one that came out of the playtest for LRB6, but somehow never made it through the BBRC. Galak and I quite like it!

Alternative: If the buff turns out to be too much, I'll keep it simple, by nixing decay and giving the skeleton positionals thick skull - but dropping the AV/BT swap.

Vampires
I think this is spot on. Vampires may have breached the bottom of tier 1. Can't say I'm overly concerned.

Underworld
With such a small change (60K rerolls) it might be argued that they should be left alone. But a boost to the starting roster does seem sensible to me.

Halflings
Very tricky. I won my first game against High Elfs (not exactly strong starters). In the Daventry league, I believe they are 0 wins, 4 ties, 3 losses. So not exactly a stellar record. The Master Chef makes the team very hard to balance, because he is so good at low TV, and so worthless at high TV. Still, if they end up too good (for high tier 2) I'll either put the linemen back to AV6, or cut catchers to 0-4.
That said, they're certainly a lot more fun to play.

Alternative: If the halflings turn out to be too good for their tier, I'm leaning towards cutting their Catchers back to 0-4. And putting their reroll cost back to 60K.

Gobbos
Super-niebling tanked with them in tournament 1. And Nicolai is off to a bad start. I've tried a few one-offs, and while the extra troll was fun, I'm not sure it helped much. So I'm not sure this is the way to go. Still, it will be interesting to see what the new SG does for the team.

Alternative: Recent feedback is making me lean heavily towards 2 lonerless trolls. But as this doesn't seem like quite enough, I'm inclined to just give SG to the weapons for 10K each. Then put their reroll cost back to 60K.

Ogres
Certainly not in tier 1. But it's a significant boost. I tried them with just the MA boost to snots a few years ago and did very well. The extra added goodies seems to make them reasonably viable.

Feedback is very welcome.
Cheers
Martin

[Shteve0]

Hi Martin

Have only played a couple of games with Undead, but loving the Grab mummies - they play beautifully early on. I'm slightly concerned that Undead may have been improved as a result, but I guess testing will show. Will let you know at the end of the season (or more likely the commish will).

The Amazon changes still do absolutely nothing for me. Short of the total overhaul I suggested in your 2012 thread, I'd prefer the softer touch of all players gaining A access and either linewomen or rerolls bumped up to 60k (though not both ). I'd contest that their current early advantage lies in sheer strength of numbers, not their individual brilliance.

Finally, I feel like Sneaky Gits should really only re-enter play on a fixed 4+ after a sending off... The combo with Babes (potentially 2+ or 3+) at the moment doesn't sit right with me.

Thanks mate

S

PS very minor point, but it's the New Zealand Capital League testing the NTBB

[plasmoid]

Hi Shteve0,
I do indeed look forward to your commish's report - presumably in time for the 2013 version.
We'll see about those undead. But I did notice in your recent match report that you had trouble causing CAS' against the wood elfs. Lack of MB does that . Not to say that Grab is a bad skill at all. I do think that the chosen MVP house rule does rather spectacularly cancel out one of the nerfs built into the changed team.

As for Amazons, I know you don't much like them. The do appeal to me personally. And somewhat by chance I'm currently talking to 2 people on the Cyanide forum who both love the change. On paper at least. We'll see with the amazons too.
I do think that 60K linewomen could be an alternative route to go. I'll keep that in mind!
But that pricetag does seem to not match up with the price of other dodge players.

As for SG - duly noted. The combo with 2 babes does pack a punch. It's a lot like a re-usable bribe - but it only works on players who have used a skill-slot to take SG. Which balances out pretty well for me. Sure - gobbos could really get something out if it, but that's intentional.

Thanks for the NZCL name. I didn't know.
If only they had a website to snoop around on

Cheers
Martin

[macabeo]

Ok, I'll bite:

I like a lot most of the changes of the rosters, ag4 halfling positionals are awesome, av8 human catchers make sense, BT tomb guardians open a whole new playstyle for khemri and thick skull makes the positionals more reasonable priced,... the change to the amazon roster is very good too, an elegant solution to excesive cheap blodge spam, and Catch + Diving catch has also a lot of sinergy with skills like Hail Mary Pass and Kick Off Return (I personally don't mind the bland 6337 statline). Thick Skull Thralls help minimize the damage of Blood Lust very nicely without overpowering it. Juggernaut Troll Slayers are ok, I like Juggernaut and it combines great with Frenzy, and the nerf is not that big. Orc Blitzers are also better priced at 90k than at 80k, I think.

Grab mummies is a great change too, I love having new skills like Grab (one of the most underrated skills IMHO) that didn't appear in the original rosters, although G access may be scary. This change probably needs a lot of testing, I'd probably increase their price by 10k or even 20k just to make sure they aren't overpowered and to further nerf undead at low TV.

Fend on Wardancers is good too, I'm completely against Blodge out of the box and even more so in a player as good as the WD. It took a while for me to accept the change, WDs are just too iconic, although it is a necessary evil. I think Fend is the most fluffy change (and a novelty skill too, which is a plus), but Shadowing could be good too. I don't like Side Step, too much overlap with Pro Elf blitzers.

Now with the things I don't like that much. At first I liked ma6 snotlings as speed is one of the biggest problems of the Ogre team, but I can't picture a snotling consistently running as fast a a human. Because of this, I'd rather give them sure feet (again an underrated skill), more suited to a darting in and out style. And I hate the titchy buff aka tackle nerf. I'm ok with av6 though after the halfling lineman av buff as they are still comparatively very squishy. I still think Ogres need more buffs, I proposed using new positionals but that's beyond the scope of NTBB, so maybe 50k rerolls would be worth trying.

I also dislike a lot the third Troll for the Goblins, it seems rather arbitrary to me and doesn't make the team any more interesting to play. Also I'm not quite sure of the effect of the new Sneaky Git on the team, it is only useful for the looney and the bombardier (I'd rather have 3 rookie goblins than 2 SG ones), it overlaps with bribes and it takes some strategy from the use of secret weapons (if you have a SG SW, you're better off deploying it asap instead of considering its usefulness on offense or defense). Overall I think the new SG will be more useful as a secondary skill for Dirty Player linemen, so probably will benefit Elves and (new) Amazons the most, and neither of them needs buffs. Again I proposed the old SG for the 0-16 goblins and rostered bribes, but since SG has changed this is not possible anymore. Maybe Jump Up or Diving Tackle is the way to go, but I don't like it that much either, and av8 doesn't appeal to me either after these many years with av7 stunty goblins in Blood Bowl.

+1 to av when fouling may also backfire. Agile and fast teams can gang-foul and recover their position better than bashier and slower teams, so getting extra assists is much easier for them. This means that this buff actually helps slow bashing teams with cheap linemen, like Undead, Khemri, Nurgle, Chaos Dwarves,... Maybe it should give +1 to injuries instead, which helps non-bashy teams and kind of unnerfs DP, as it would potentially provide a +2 to injuries on fouls, although this change may be too radical.

I also hate the Piling On change (disclaimer: I do not intend to turn this into yet another CPOMB thread). First, now it is more of a no brainer than ever: reroll stuns and if looking for SPPs reroll KOs too. Period. No coaching skill involved, at least when rerolling armor you're taking a greater risk. I understand why a lot of people want PO to be nerfed, but this nerf does not address its problems: it stacks with Claw and Mighty Blow to great effect and a lot of players can get that combo relatively easy. The first one is easy to solve: "AV and injury rolls rerolled with PO are unmodified. If it was used to reroll AV and the armor was broken, the subsequent injury roll is also unmodified". The second is more complex, but still doable I think. Besides, just like agile teams often have their freaks, like WDs with stat increases and one-turning Gutter Runners, bashy teams should be allowed to have their damage-dealing stars of their own too. For that, apart from the non-stacking nerf, I'd like to see the ability to be usable only when the ST of the blocker is greater than the ST of the blockee. The reasons why:

- It makes the CPOMB combo available only to slow guys who are usually quite hard to skill. I mean, if you get a Nurgle Warrior to three skills giving up powerful skills like Block and Guard you deserve at least a guy that can dish out the pain.
- It buffs and gives protection to Big Guys, which need some love in these days of TV min-maxing, I think.
- It gets rid of stupid Chaos Pact (and others) CPOMB min-maxing
- It fits the fluff a lot (whenever a see a human blitzer piling on a minotaur I picture him falling softly on its furry belly, whereas I can imagine why the opposite may be painful, or a human blitzer piling on a goblin for that matter). It also helps with the stronger == more damage mentality, I remember my early days in BB in which I prefered a 2db with an unskilled BoB to a 2db with an Orc Blitzer thinking it would do more damage if I got a POW.

This might shift a bit the power struggle between the bashy teams, but it would favor alternative ways of bashing, like Grab/Guard Dwarves.

Last proposed change, a crazy idea not to be taken too seriously regarding the Underworld team. The Underworld has a lot of potential (my favorite BG and arguably one of the best CPOMB players too), but their players are quite luckluster at the beginning. They are cheap, so they don't need help with the initial roster (hence why cheaper rerolls don't make much sense, even more so on a team with Animosity), but whenever they lose valuable players due to attrition, and they do, they are set back by a huge margin. Quite a few people in the community seem to like the idea of random mutations, and the description of the team is so over the top with mutations and the random behavior of their players that this is only fitting: random mutation for free on the goblins. This makes them not so bad after being purchased, and probably leads to some very fun plays. Damn, get a double on a Claw goblin and make him a dwarf hunter with MB or stop that WD from scoring with your tentacles goblin (1 in 6 of succeeding if I recall correctly). Also the odds of getting really useful skills like 2-heads and horns are still low, so I don't think this would make them overpowered. I mean, I guess people could cycle journeymen, but only over a long time and paying the price of playing with only 11 players. And we all could use those great mutated minis that don't make any sense at all (who in his right mind would give VLL to a goblin, like in this mini? http://neomics.net/shop/underworld/gobl ... long-limbs).

Anyway, thanks to Plasmoid for the effort, the success of a game depends on keeping it fresh throughout the years for veterans and newcomers alike. And this is how you spend your spare time at work, folks...

[Shteve0]

Hi Shteve0,
I do indeed look forward to your commish's report - presumably in time for the 2013 version.

I'm sure it's in the pipeline, and we should have a second league completed (or close to it) by Dec - watch this space

We'll see about those undead. But I did notice in your recent match report that you had trouble causing CAS' against the wood elfs. Lack of MB does that . Not to say that Grab is a bad skill at all. I do think that the chosen MVP house rule does rather spectacularly cancel out one of the nerfs built into the changed team.

Ye-es, but I'm not sure that we both interpret that in the same way. Grab's a great skill, and makes mummies more reliable in the short term in that you can reasonably go looking for pushes despite a lack of mobility, and can stay based to an opponent after a push without sacrificing your position. Will this hurt them long term? I guess time will tell

As for Amazons, I know you don't much like them. The do appeal to me personally. And somewhat by chance I'm currently talking to 2 people on the Cyanide forum who both love the change. On paper at least. We'll see with the amazons too.
I do think that 60K linewomen could be an alternative route to go. I'll keep that in mind!
But that pricetag does seem to not match up with the price of other dodge players.

I'll not give up on this one that easily For the record, I acknowledge that the LRB6 zons are not without flaws, but I enjoyed playing them nonetheless. The NTBB12 rules ruined them for me, in that to make use of the blitzers ST access you have to double up block and wrestle, costing you 110k and a skill slot... the blitzer is already close to the cost of two linewomen. What exactly do you get for the extra 40k?

As for pricing, it obviously makes sense to take the pulse of other teams, but also take into account the effect a change has within that roster in isolation. I'd suggest that 60k (A access) linewomen are fairly priced in that it counteracts the thrower, blitzer and catcher all being overpriced in CRP.

Yes, I'd want to do more with a full amazon rewrite, but I really feel that neither wrestle blitzers at 90k or diving catch MA6+ST3 catchers are part of the solution.

Thanks for the NZCL name. I didn't know.
If only they had a website to snoop around on

I'll look into it - I remember the ECBBL had an awesome site. I'm not sure what costs are involved or the appetite in the league, but I'm all for it

cheers!

Steve

[plasmoid]

Hi guys,
thanks for your replies. It may be until the weekend before I can reply, but I'm not ignoring you
Cheers
Martin

[harroguk]

For Plasmoid incase he misses it on his occasional walks through our forums...

http://www.daventryvaulters.co.uk/forum ... =53&t=3566

[spubbbba]

How about this as a change to human teams? It’s mainly for fun and I’ve deliberately tried to keep it underpowered. I think some or all the changes to blitzers (80K), catchers (AV and ogres (130K) already proposed would be a good was to boost them a little.

Have good, neutral and evil humans.

Good get treemen in place of ogres and 0-2 halflings with possibly blitzers reduced to 0-2.
Neutral as normal humans but get 0-2 kickers – 70K linemen with kick and dp. Could add human blockers too I suppose.
Evil team get the minotaur in place of the ogre and catchers reduced to 0-2 but get 0-2 mutants, human linemen with mutation access for 60K.

How about positionals for the Ogre team as well?

Maybe cheaper linemen that have AV8 or lose MB, blisters that gain juggernaut or BT or blockers that gain SF or grab.

[kerrygray8]

FWIW, my 'gut feeling' is that AV8 Goblins would be wrong. With so many other AV7 players out there (Amazons, Norse, Skaven, etc) it just seems a bit incongruous (I play Goblins quite a lot BTW, so I'm not in any way anti-Goblin!). Although, would I be right in thinking Goblin Linemen used to be AV8 back in the days when then had separate Catchers?

A Stunty team with good AV would be interesting as a House Rule (I've seen a few Gnome suggestions on various forums...) but for me, AV7 is part of a Goblin's innate 'charm'

Of course, I have only put a few minutes of thought into this, so I'm not sure I can think an alternative suggestion!

Would 'Side Step' on all Gobbos be too broken?

[Beefburger]

Dodge leap sidestep would seem a better Wd fluff wise for me. You know, more... Dancery

[plasmoid]

AV8 gobbos is dead. Not only has the response been less than thrilled, but messing with gobbo stats would spill into the orc and underworld team. Poor thinking.
If gobbos do need something extra then I could either buff the secret weapon players or make the Trolls lonerless.
Cheers
Martin

[MattDakka]

AV8 gobbos is dead. Not only has the response been less than thrilled, but messing with gobbo stats would spill into the orc and underworld team. Poor thinking.
If gobbos do need something extra then I could either buff the secret weapon players or make the Trolls lonerless.
Cheers
Martin

I like the lonerless Trolls idea!

[plasmoid]

It certainly makes sense. Then teams with multiple identical Big guys would have Them lonerless.

[plasmoid]

Hi Harroguk,
I hadn't seen that yet. Thanks. Surely a review to be proud of. In fact all the Ogre coaches that I've talked to have been quite positive.
So ogres are set in Stone for 2013 (and beyond)
Cheers
Martin

[Shteve0]

I like the SS/Dodge/Leap wardancer, and the lonerless trolls on the goblin roster. Both very elegant solutions.