Orc booster back

[peo2223]

I've just seen the forge world booster pack for the orc blood bowl team. I'm a little confused. Can anyone explain why there is only one blitzer and an additional thrower? There's already the maximum number of throwers in the box. Are people chopping up these poor throwers into bits? Are they being given to dogs to play with as chew toys? Or will we see a generation of orc throwers feeling unloved, unused and just watching their dreams of playing blood bowl slip slowly from their fingers like a fumbled pass?

[Regash]

Their only use is to suck money from your wallet for stuff you don't need.
Has it ever been different?

Or maybe you could use at least the hand with the ball to convert other minis into throwers?

[Digger Goreman]

Their only use is to suck money from your wallet for stuff you don't need.
Has it ever been different?

No, yet their lackeys will simply fawn and file this down the memory hole.

[Christy42]

It is following their formula which works for most teams. Orcs are not most teams and an exception should obviously been made. If I went with Orcs I would be converting the relevant positions anyway due to duplicates but it would mean you need something else to kit bash with.

[Regash]

It is following their formula which works for most teams. Orcs are not most teams and an exception should obviously been made.

Wouldn't that mean that they either did not use their brains before putting together the booster contents or that they did it on purpose?
Either way, a very sad example for a company re-releasing a game that is older than a lot of its players...

[Christy42]

It is following their formula which works for most teams. Orcs are not most teams and an exception should obviously been made.

Wouldn't that mean that they either did not use their brains before putting together the booster contents or that they did it on purpose?
Either way, a very sad example for a company re-releasing a game that is older than a lot of its players...

I would say they didn't think about it. Or at least they came up with a formula that works for most teams (at least 1 of every positional and generally 2 of a second). Few teams have 2 0-4 positionals and didn't bother changing it. Humans have it but who really wants 4 catchers.

Pity as they showed they are willing to suit different teams with the undead release but this one is pretty disappointing. Especially as Orcs are one of the core races as you were and they don't have an efficient way to get what most would consider a competitive 1million roster.

[stashman]

I've just seen the forge world booster pack for the orc blood bowl team. I'm a little confused. Can anyone explain why there is only one blitzer and an additional thrower? There's already the maximum number of throwers in the box. Are people chopping up these poor throwers into bits? Are they being given to dogs to play with as chew toys? Or will we see a generation of orc throwers feeling unloved, unused and just watching their dreams of playing blood bowl slip slowly from their fingers like a fumbled pass?

Its more fun for a collector to have 2 diffrent throwers.

[faust_33]

I've been picking up most everything New-Blood Bowl lately, but I'm really disappointed in this one. Makes no sense, as I originally bought another box to have a full Orc team. I guess I'll have to paint up the other as Santas, and hang them on the Christmas tree? Maybe give to friends as birthday presents? "Here ya go, have an Orc!".

I'm also not crazy about the two Black Orc Blocker minis. The original has a lame pose, but they still don't get it right with these two. Plus they look like near mirror images of each other. Not totally crazy about the new Blitzer either. Even less so, that it's only 1. On a positive note it looks a bit better than the original.

At $10 USD per mini (without shipping), that's a skip for me.

[spubbbba]

Why is this a shock? The exact same happened with humans, that pack had 2 blitzers, 1 thrower and a catcher.

Luckily for them human catchers are pretty mediocre and few coaches will take all 4.

[Jip]

The crazy thing is, somewhere, some people had a conversation about what minis to put in this pack, and that conversation resulted in a (third) Thrower being a better idea than a (fourth) Blitzer.

It just seems consciously misguided; they are either really disconnected with their product (“people must want a third Thrower instead of a forth Blitzer”) or exploitative (“we’ll give them something, but not make it entirely useful”).

They’re a business and doing well as a business, I just get annoyed when things like the Orc booster are pitched as ‘for the player’, or ,for the painter’.

I’m on the GW teat as much as the next person, but seeing people defend or praise it just baffles me.

This is a far better troll than the last one they released.

[gjnoronh]

Probably just was a sculptor saying 'here's four cool ideas for minis for orcs do you like them?' rather then the sculptor being handed a brief saying "make 2 Blorcs and 2 blitzers please that's what the players want for an optimal team."

At that price point for the booster though it's cheaper to buy a new whole box if you just want to complete your team and have an extra 8 minis for star players and other conversions. I mean what competitive orc player has waited 2 years for this booster to complete their optimal Orc team? It's just not designed to fill that need for an optimal team (particularly not at this price point.)

[Digger Goreman]

It's just not designed to fill that need for an optimal team (particularly not at this price point.)

Why do I feel like someone left the tele on the FOX network?

[Jip]

Probably just was a sculptor saying 'here's four cool ideas for minis for orcs do you like them?'

If that's the process, that would answer a lot of questions (and raise a lot more), for me.

If it all starts with the sculptors having free reign and everything else being engineered from there, then this makes a little more sense, process-wise, anyway.

I can't see the common sense of that though, as it'd leave the rules and fluff completely at the mercy of what mood the sculptor was at, at the time.

I don't know what goes on with that side of the process at GW, that does seem a backwards way of doing it though...

[Christy42]

Probably just was a sculptor saying 'here's four cool ideas for minis for orcs do you like them?'

If that's the process, that would answer a lot of questions (and raise a lot more), for me.

If it all starts with the sculptors having free reign and everything else being engineered from there, then this makes a little more sense, process-wise, anyway.

I can't see the common sense of that though, as it'd leave the rules and fluff completely at the mercy of what mood the sculptor was at, at the time.

I don't know what goes on with that side of the process at GW, that does seem a backwards way of doing it though...

I think the star players are sculptor led. Which is cool as it ensures someone really wants to do it.

Positional packs have always had 1 of each positional and then a second of a teams 0-4. So Skaven was a thrower, blitzer and 2 gutter runners going by this formula. With Humans they had a second blitzer as that makes more sense than 4 catchers. Pro elf was 2x Catchers a blitzer and a thrower. There is no sculptor choice in what models go in the pack as it is formulaic.

The issue with the orcs was two always useful 0-4 positionals and an unwillingness to break their formula.

[gjnoronh]

It's just not designed to fill that need for an optimal team (particularly not at this price point.)

Why do I feel like someone left the tele on the FOX network?

Trust me the television has never been left on the FOX (news) network in our house.

I can't say how things work specifically now with Forgeworld in particular but historically there has been a long history of the sculptors driving the rules writers at GW as described in White Dwarf and various interviews. We already know about Gutter Runner Weeping Daggers in BB 2016 relaunch. But it's older then that Blood Bowl Fanatic for example was a port of the Warhammer Fantasy Battles Fanatic - and the GW fanatic came about to my recall because someone sculpted a crazy goblin with a ball and chain and they decided someone needs to come up with rules for it.

As I remember discussions from some old White Dwarf's for some GW product lines ("armies") the print artists (i.e. John Blanche) had the first crack at setting ideas for a line and what resonated with the rest of the team is what set the sculpting and rules writing. In actual practice I suspect it's probably not unidirectional but multi-directional with print artists sculptors and rules writers working cooperatively.

Forgeworld in particular is pretty artist driven with much of the stuff they make just not having _any_ rules from GW's main rules team for 40K/AoS. They end up creating their own Forgeworld rules when they come up with a cool idea sometimes for those lines. That includes stuff like titans and chaos war mammoths and Exalted Greater Daemons (like two to three times the size of normal greater daemons of the same vintage.) They are making cool minis for the collector in particular more then mainline gamer.

But I suspect it's easier to get access to the work que for a resin Forgeworld sculptor w then the main core plastics sculptors (aside from the economics of sale numbers needed to justify a plastic kit) which is why some of our minis with less expected sales then the box sets end up with the Forgeworld team.