Horrors of Tzeentch roster
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 3:10 am
So, completely out of boredom and almost entirely because the idea entertained me a lot, I whipped up this roster of Tzeentchian horrors. The basic idea was that most rosters try to differentiate themselves by heaping on a skill that doesn't get used much, or by focusing heavily on fluff... so I wanted a roster that actually played completely different than all other rosters, and which presented a completely different experience for their opponents. Tzeentch is, afterall, the changer of ways.
Horrors of Tzeentch
Qty Title Cost MA ST AG AV Skills Norm Doub
0-16 Blue Horrors 20,000 5 1 3 5 Multiple Block, Stunty, Titchy, Volatile, Regeneration M GASP
0-16 Pink Horrors 50,000 6 2 3 7 Stunty, Regeneration, Unstable M GASP
0-4 Flamers of Tzeentch 150,000 1 6 1 10 Loner, No Hands, Take Root, Bombardier, Stand Firm, Thick Skull, Hail Mary Pass, Regeneration MAP GS
Re-rolls: 10k
Volatile
If this player falls prone for any reason (knocked down during a block, a failed dodge roll, etc) then after all results from the action are concluded, such as the armor and injury rolls against the players involved the square this player is in (or was in if they are removed from the field in the interim) becomes the location of an explosion as though the square had been targeted by a Fireball cast by a Wizard. Unlike normal fireballs, the explosion affects prone players as well, forcing an armor roll on those players as though they had been knocked down by the explosion. This also affects the Volatile player, potentially forcing a second armor and injury rolls from the same action.
Unstable
When this player rolls a Causalty or KO'd result on the Injury table he is instead considered Dead and is permanently removed from the roster. In the player's place, however, two fresh Blue Horrors are added to the roster if there is room, and those two Blue Horrors are, if possible, placed in empty squares adjacent to the square in which the player died. If no squares are available for a Blue Horror, it is placed in the reserves. The addition of the Blue Horrors to the field may allow the number of fielded players to surpass 11, and their presence is not considered illegal procedure until the end of the drive.
Discussion
If your first reaction to the roster is "what the f*ck?" then mission accomplished! If your second reaction is that you can't decide whether the roster is grossly overpowered or the absolute worst tier 3 team you've ever seen then that's absolutely perfect! Most likely it falls just shy of Ogres in terms of long-term performance, but that's totally ok!
Lets take a look at the different player types and talk a bit about what each one is all about..
Blue Horror
These are the core of the team - Blue Horrors are small, weak, fragile, explosive linemen who focus on one thing: being absolutely terrible at almost everything, and going out of their way to do those things. The Volatile skill makes Blues interesting: any time they hit the pitch they become the center of a fireball that has the potential to floor many opponents (and allies, I suppose). To this end, the goal of a Blue Horror is to find a good position and then suffer spectacular failure, be it during a dodge or an ill-advised multiple block.
Since nobody is interested in being inside the blast of a fireball, and the unimaginably low ST of horrors means that the opponent is almost certainly going to be choosing the block dice from among several, the blocking process is more of a dare against the opposing coach... do you really want to choose attacker down? Maybe you'd rather that push... maybe you'd rather your player say, in deadpan "ack, you got me" and fall over next to the triumphant horror that probably can't do much to a prone enemy.
Pink Horror
The Pinks are the functional players on the Tzeentch team. They're still not very good, but they don't randomly explode which makes them far better suited for things like... holding a ball. If you're going to score it'll probably be with a pink, though almost certainly with a pink that is strolling out of a series of explosions like an 80s action hero.
The Unstable skill makes Pink Horrors very cost efficient, as while they are moderately tough to kill due to their regeneration you'll never end up with injuries because they break into two blue horrors instead of becoming a casualty (its a fluff thing).
Given that none of the other player types on the team are ever likely to earn many legitimate SPPs, the Pink Horror is the piece where the mutation-only normal access is most likely to come into play. Horrors need to work with the versatile grab-bag of mutation skills unless they luck out with some doubles... so any play strategies you might think of for them would need to work around that.
Flamers of Tzeentch
The scary big guy of the team that... isn't really that scary when you consider its stats and skills in their entirety.. the Flamer is the primary place any TV will come from for this team. They can't move around much, and they can't hold the ball. Their job is to shower the board will small fireballs that they aim with the razor-sharp precision of a half-blind old man with advanced arthritis.
So what's the point of an expensive piece that mostly resembles one of those dancing fan-powered tube men business sometimes set up outside to get attention, but that hurls grenades seemingly at random? Well, they offer suppressing fire that can provide (mostly psychological) pressure on the other team and keep them from bunching up (which blue horrors also do)... but also the more flamers you have the better your chances they'll randomly soak an MVP at some point at which point you can improve their aim or just give them tentacles and use them as a fairly proficient living wall.
Cheapest Re-rolls in history
It won't help... that's what makes it funny. They're so miserably bad at doing almost everything that re-rolls might as well be plentiful.. they also fit well with Tzeentch fluff.
So what's the point?
The main idea behind the team came from open TV-matched online play. The team is likely absolutely terrible against agility teams as it lacks much ability to deal with dodgy players... but the team is murder on bash teams. In fact, the better a bash team is at bashing the harsher a game against Tzeentch becomes. Nothing makes Blue Horrors more excited than an opposing team chock full 'o CPOMB! The more bash-heavy an environment the more fun it is to play the Tzeentch team, with agility matches being the least interesting.
Given that the team is ill-suited to winning, or even to developing, it's hard to get deeply invested in your players... which is good because other than the flamers, the players are mostly ill-suited to long-term existence. Even mirror matches would play out like a grenade-throwing fight between children with no depth-perception standing in a mine field. All hail chaos!
Possible Alternatives
One of the ideas was to change re-rolls from being 10k to being 100k... or 200k! It's not because we don't want Tzeench to have lots of re-rolls, but because it would let the Tzeench team artificially inflate their TV so they could better position themselves to detonate among high-development bashers in open environments.
So... comments and thoughts?
Horrors of Tzeentch
Qty Title Cost MA ST AG AV Skills Norm Doub
0-16 Blue Horrors 20,000 5 1 3 5 Multiple Block, Stunty, Titchy, Volatile, Regeneration M GASP
0-16 Pink Horrors 50,000 6 2 3 7 Stunty, Regeneration, Unstable M GASP
0-4 Flamers of Tzeentch 150,000 1 6 1 10 Loner, No Hands, Take Root, Bombardier, Stand Firm, Thick Skull, Hail Mary Pass, Regeneration MAP GS
Re-rolls: 10k
Volatile
If this player falls prone for any reason (knocked down during a block, a failed dodge roll, etc) then after all results from the action are concluded, such as the armor and injury rolls against the players involved the square this player is in (or was in if they are removed from the field in the interim) becomes the location of an explosion as though the square had been targeted by a Fireball cast by a Wizard. Unlike normal fireballs, the explosion affects prone players as well, forcing an armor roll on those players as though they had been knocked down by the explosion. This also affects the Volatile player, potentially forcing a second armor and injury rolls from the same action.
Unstable
When this player rolls a Causalty or KO'd result on the Injury table he is instead considered Dead and is permanently removed from the roster. In the player's place, however, two fresh Blue Horrors are added to the roster if there is room, and those two Blue Horrors are, if possible, placed in empty squares adjacent to the square in which the player died. If no squares are available for a Blue Horror, it is placed in the reserves. The addition of the Blue Horrors to the field may allow the number of fielded players to surpass 11, and their presence is not considered illegal procedure until the end of the drive.
Discussion
If your first reaction to the roster is "what the f*ck?" then mission accomplished! If your second reaction is that you can't decide whether the roster is grossly overpowered or the absolute worst tier 3 team you've ever seen then that's absolutely perfect! Most likely it falls just shy of Ogres in terms of long-term performance, but that's totally ok!
Lets take a look at the different player types and talk a bit about what each one is all about..
Blue Horror
These are the core of the team - Blue Horrors are small, weak, fragile, explosive linemen who focus on one thing: being absolutely terrible at almost everything, and going out of their way to do those things. The Volatile skill makes Blues interesting: any time they hit the pitch they become the center of a fireball that has the potential to floor many opponents (and allies, I suppose). To this end, the goal of a Blue Horror is to find a good position and then suffer spectacular failure, be it during a dodge or an ill-advised multiple block.
Since nobody is interested in being inside the blast of a fireball, and the unimaginably low ST of horrors means that the opponent is almost certainly going to be choosing the block dice from among several, the blocking process is more of a dare against the opposing coach... do you really want to choose attacker down? Maybe you'd rather that push... maybe you'd rather your player say, in deadpan "ack, you got me" and fall over next to the triumphant horror that probably can't do much to a prone enemy.
Pink Horror
The Pinks are the functional players on the Tzeentch team. They're still not very good, but they don't randomly explode which makes them far better suited for things like... holding a ball. If you're going to score it'll probably be with a pink, though almost certainly with a pink that is strolling out of a series of explosions like an 80s action hero.
The Unstable skill makes Pink Horrors very cost efficient, as while they are moderately tough to kill due to their regeneration you'll never end up with injuries because they break into two blue horrors instead of becoming a casualty (its a fluff thing).
Given that none of the other player types on the team are ever likely to earn many legitimate SPPs, the Pink Horror is the piece where the mutation-only normal access is most likely to come into play. Horrors need to work with the versatile grab-bag of mutation skills unless they luck out with some doubles... so any play strategies you might think of for them would need to work around that.
Flamers of Tzeentch
The scary big guy of the team that... isn't really that scary when you consider its stats and skills in their entirety.. the Flamer is the primary place any TV will come from for this team. They can't move around much, and they can't hold the ball. Their job is to shower the board will small fireballs that they aim with the razor-sharp precision of a half-blind old man with advanced arthritis.
So what's the point of an expensive piece that mostly resembles one of those dancing fan-powered tube men business sometimes set up outside to get attention, but that hurls grenades seemingly at random? Well, they offer suppressing fire that can provide (mostly psychological) pressure on the other team and keep them from bunching up (which blue horrors also do)... but also the more flamers you have the better your chances they'll randomly soak an MVP at some point at which point you can improve their aim or just give them tentacles and use them as a fairly proficient living wall.
Cheapest Re-rolls in history
It won't help... that's what makes it funny. They're so miserably bad at doing almost everything that re-rolls might as well be plentiful.. they also fit well with Tzeentch fluff.
So what's the point?
The main idea behind the team came from open TV-matched online play. The team is likely absolutely terrible against agility teams as it lacks much ability to deal with dodgy players... but the team is murder on bash teams. In fact, the better a bash team is at bashing the harsher a game against Tzeentch becomes. Nothing makes Blue Horrors more excited than an opposing team chock full 'o CPOMB! The more bash-heavy an environment the more fun it is to play the Tzeentch team, with agility matches being the least interesting.
Given that the team is ill-suited to winning, or even to developing, it's hard to get deeply invested in your players... which is good because other than the flamers, the players are mostly ill-suited to long-term existence. Even mirror matches would play out like a grenade-throwing fight between children with no depth-perception standing in a mine field. All hail chaos!
Possible Alternatives
One of the ideas was to change re-rolls from being 10k to being 100k... or 200k! It's not because we don't want Tzeench to have lots of re-rolls, but because it would let the Tzeench team artificially inflate their TV so they could better position themselves to detonate among high-development bashers in open environments.
So... comments and thoughts?