New Team Concept - Snakemen (1st Playtest Game Thoughts p2)

[axiom]

I've got one or two old Citadel Snakemen kicking around that could form the start of a Snakeman team. I had a play with some ideas and have this result:

0-16 Snakemen (70k) 7 3 3 7, Prehensile Tail (G ASPM)
0-2 Constrictor (110k) 5 4 2 8, Prehensile Tail, Wrestle (GS APM)
0-2 Cobroid (90k) 7 3 3 7, Prehensile Tail, Stab (Fangs) (GS APM)
0-2 Gorgon (100k) 8 3 3 7, Prehensile Tail, Hypnotic Gaze (GA SPM)

Principles:
- Everyone gets a prehensile tail, after all their entire lower bodies are snakes
- Like Slann teams, they have atypical skills to represent the racial type
- Constrictors are Boa Constrictor blocker-types - slow, strong and able to grapple their victims to the ground
- Cobroids have massive fangs and sort of equate to a blitzer
- Gorgons are fast, and everyone knows snakes can hypnotise people (you've all seen the Jungle Book right?)
- They all get mutation access on doubles as the old models were Chaos Snakemen. Plus we've all seen pics of two-headed snakes

Any thoughts?

[Kort]

Fun team

70k is a bit too expensive for a player that has only General skill access, starts with no great skill, and has a short life expectancy. You could definitely give a 10k discount or better skill access.

Also, the roster will probably suffer a lot against bashy teams because of average AG and AV7 and relative uselessness of Prehensile Tail and Stab against them. It seems to be well equipped to annoy lighter teams though.

[axiom]

Fun team

70k is a bit too expensive for a player that has only General skill access, starts with no great skill, and has a short life expectancy. You could definitely give a 10k discount or better skill access.

Also, the roster will probably suffer a lot against bashy teams because of average AG and AV7 and relative uselessness of Prehensile Tail and Stab against them. It seems to be well equipped to annoy lighter teams though.

70k is what the JJ formula gives you - a discount might be in order though to make it a bit easier to build the team. I wanted to keep the team fast with the racial skill, but that really bumped the cost up. In an ideal world, the Snakemen and Cobroid would have AV8, but that made them too expensive without breaking all kinds of JJ guidelines!

[lucasluckydelux]

70k is a bit too expensive for a player that has only General skill access, starts with no great skill, and has a short life expectancy. You could definitely give a 10k discount or better skill access.

I'd say extremely expensive: it's like a wood elf lineman without access to Ag skills and with -Ag and only gets it's tail in return.

[Kort]

70k is what the JJ formula gives you - a discount might be in order though to make it a bit easier to build the team. I wanted to keep the team fast with the racial skill, but that really bumped the cost up. In an ideal world, the Snakemen and Cobroid would have AV8, but that made them too expensive without breaking all kinds of JJ guidelines!

You perfectly respected the JJ guidelines, but that's what they are, guidelines. They are sometimes obsolete (30k for Dauntless or Strong Arm, since they used to be so hard to get), sometimes slightly out of touch (20k for Catch, not taking into account the Agility), or even downright bizarre (20k for Sprint while it is clearly less good than +MV in any case). Finally, they do not take into account synergies, long term development and skill access.

Prehensile Tail is not a great skill to begin with, and loses some of its efficiency when it is spammed and when given to players that can just be blocked away if necessary. Thus, it could definitely be given for 10k to your linemen.

[axiom]

70k is what the JJ formula gives you - a discount might be in order though to make it a bit easier to build the team. I wanted to keep the team fast with the racial skill, but that really bumped the cost up. In an ideal world, the Snakemen and Cobroid would have AV8, but that made them too expensive without breaking all kinds of JJ guidelines!

You perfectly respected the JJ guidelines, but that's what they are, guidelines. They are sometimes obsolete (30k for Dauntless or Strong Arm, since they used to be so hard to get), sometimes slightly out of touch (20k for Catch, not taking into account the Agility), or even downright bizarre (20k for Sprint while it is clearly less good than +MV in any case). Finally, they do not take into account synergies, long term development and skill access.

Prehensile Tail is not a great skill to begin with, and loses some of its efficiency when it is spammed and when given to players that can just be blocked away if necessary. Thus, it could definitely be given for 10k to your linemen.

All great feedback - thanks!

So a revised lineup of:

0-16 Snakemen (60k) 7 3 3 7, Prehensile Tail (G ASPM)
0-2 Constrictor (110k) 5 4 2 8, Prehensile Tail, Wrestle (GS APM)
0-2 Cobroid (90k) 7 3 3 7, Prehensile Tail, Stab (Fangs) (GS APM)
0-2 Gorgon (100k) 8 3 3 7, Prehensile Tail, Hypnotic Gaze (GA SPM)

Any other issues / comments?

[Oxynot]

I do not have the insight to evaluate the team as a whole, but this ringed badly in my ears.

Prehensile Tail is not a great skill to begin with, and loses some of its efficiency when it is spammed and when given to players that can just be blocked away if necessary. Thus, it could definitely be given for 10k to your linemen.

Prehensile tail stacks, so dodging out of tackle zones of two players that have PT gives you a -2 modifier. So when spammed, it is bad news for agility teams and really bad news to stunty teams.

[Kort]

For some reason I thought PT did not stack. I stand corrected.

[Raziel_Spry]

Looks fun! But as has been mentioned, it is very weighted toward beating the low armour teams, and would be a nightmare for stunties. The Cobroids would wreak havoc on low armour opponents after getting their first skill (Multiblock!). Prehensile tail looks to be a problem, too...

On the flipside of things, maybe they could do better than I think against strength teams: Strength 4 and wrestle, as well as Hypogaze on the Gorgons might mean they can use their MV7 to run/slither straight through the opponent's line.

I like the idea is good, but the team as it stands looks like it might be a little too lopsided, doing really well against some opponents, and really poorly against others.

[Greyhound]

I like it, I like what you did.
I'm surprised jump up didn't make it there.
Against bash most team can either stand against them (block from Norse) or have agility access for dodge.

They look like skavens in many way due to their speed. Maybe you could slow them down a bit and make them more annoying to bash with more wrestle?

[Insane_Prophet]

It's a fun idea. I like "new teams" that make use of less common skills.

Swapping Stab for Claws might limit the extent to which the team houses stunties (though snakes preying on stunties feels flavoursome) and give the bash opponents more to worry about.

Shadowing feels like it might fit in there somewhere - snakes stalking their prey - though I'm not too sure where.

[voyagers_uk]

slann would love to play against them

[Darkson]

I'm liking this - not sure the roster is "there" yet, but it looks an interesting idea, which means it puts it above the lies of the all-frenzy Khorne team in the list of "teams I'd like to try".

[nazgob]

I would be slightly concerned about giving a str4 player wrestle off the bat. its not as bad as str4 block, but its close.

The linemen might be better with shadowing over prehensile tail, as the tail would be really wrong in such numbers. correct me if im wrong, but i belive that you can only shadow with one player

[Greyhound]

I just double check your linos are identical to the skaven Lino with a tail when the rodents are only 50k.
That tail cost a lot, and some races will ignore it, so I don't think it's overpowered.