Talk Fantasy Football

rolo wrote:

Dr. Von Richten wrote:I'm assuming it is a regular skill. Another double would be too good to be true

Since one of the other options is a double skill on an otherwise unskilled player, I doubt it.

Its a regular skill -- but it can be given to someone who has either received a double or a single skill previously (tier 2 and 3)


As for tiers as a necro coach mainly, far too often Necros get lumped in tier 1 they're not as good as the rest of tier one although as I believe the Belgians concluded before the last Eurobowl they're probably the best of the rest and need a tier of their own

However in the Team I'm playing in Necro's responsibility falls to Dr Von Richten -- no pressure

Tiers of this World Cup are actually based on the tier of the Brassbowl tourney.
For some reason this tourney always put Necro in tier2...

Belgium actually voted to have necro in the top tier.

The potential issue is that the teams within the so-called "Tiers" aren't equal. So no matter where you set the tiers, there is always going to be a "worst tier 1 team" and a "best tier 2 team". For any rule set which gives a small bonus to lower tiers, that "Best Tier 2 team" is going to benefit.

For the record I'm not complaining. I do prefer tournaments which give this bonus - it really does encourage a wider range of teams than you might otherwise see. And a more diverse tournament is often a more fun tournament, even if the price you pay is an extra skill or so on that Necro Werewolf, or Beastman, or Pestigor, or High Elf Catcher, or whatever. Better than spending a day playing against "Dwarf, Dwarf, Chaos Dwarf".

So Necros are probably the team which benefits most from the World Cup rules. That's fine, there's a tradeoff no matter what the ruleset is. I've played practice games with World Cup rules, including as Dwarves agasint Necros, and the rules are fine. Not to mention that even if every single World Cup team brings Necros (doubtful), that's still only a sixth of all teams. You'll have maybe one or two Necromantic opponents for the whole nine games.

You're correct. The goal wasn't to perfectly balance the teams, but to add incentives so that there will be more diversity in team selection. At World Cup Amsterdam, 5 team types made up more than 50% of the field. I didn't think that was a good representation of what Blood Bowl is. With that being said, we still might see the same sort of trend, just with different team types forming the majority. But my hope is that the tiers will result in more diversity and a more entertaining tournament.

(Full disclosure: I'm taking necro. )

Last minute suggestions, anyone?

It comes down to taste, I guess. Plenty of good options and no really wrong knes. Guard on ghoul is interesting, but I am going MB wolf and leader zombie for the doubles. And I went for the 12 player roster after all.

My list is almost exactly the same as Straume's.

In the end, I've foregone the double on Day 2 and put Guard on both Wights, as they're much less likely to be taken out of the game. We'll see if it works or not!

I went for:

2 Werewolves (Day1 Block, Day 1 MB)
2 Flesh Golems (Day1 Block, Day2 Guard)
2 Wights (Day1 Guard, Day 3 Guard)
2 Ghouls (Day1 Sure Hands, Day 3 Block)
4 Zombies (Day2 Leader)
2 Rerolls
1 Cheerleader
1 assistant Coach

Gaixo wrote:At World Cup Amsterdam, 5 team types made up more than 50% of the field. I didn't think that was a good representation of what Blood Bowl is. With that being said, we still might see the same sort of trend, just with different team types forming the majority.

We have 912 rosters!
In the next newsletter we will link ALL!
A little anticipation:
Wood Elf 100, Dark Elf 89, Undead 89,
Necromantic 82, Lizardman 72, Skaven 62,
Dwarf 50, Chaos Dwarf 48, Orc 46
Human 45, Elf 38, Norse 37,
Chaos Pact 25, High Elf 18, Chaos 16,
Amazon 14, Khemri 14, Ogre 14,
Underworld 11, Slann 10, Goblin 9,
Halfling 8, Vampire 8, Nurgle 7.

So the top five teams make up ... 432 out of 912 rosters submitted so far, for 47% of all teams

Still, there's nine games per coach and no race makes up even a full ninth of the field. Most teams will probably face a pretty diverse schedule.

Edit: I'm also frankly shocked that there's only seven Nurgle teams. IMO Nurgle is one of the teams most helped by the ruleset. Disclaimer: My teammate is one of the lucky seven

That's fair, though it is a drop of about 6%.

Take a look at the bottom half, though. Those 12 teams, taken as a whole, are up almost 10% from the previous World Cup. It's still not an even representation, by any means, but it's certainly better than it was.

While I wanted to see more diversity in general, my #1 goal was to create a tournament environment in which coaches didn't feel that they had to forego their favorite team for fear of letting their side down. Hopefully the tiers helped with that.

Gaixo, I think your goals were successful:



Every one of the "top five" teams from Amsterdam (Wood Elves, Undead, Orcs, Skaven, Lizardmen) lost "market share" as a percentage of the field. Popular teams remain popular, and I doubt any ruleset will change that. Dark Elves and Necros entered the top five, Orcs and Skaven are out (although they didn't fall that far).

Necromantic saw the biggest increase, which shouldn't surprise anyone, because they're really, really good in this ruleset. But a lot of Tier 2 teams increased as well.

Amazons look like they took a massive hit - there are just over half as many Amazon teams in Lucca, in a field nearly twice as large!!
I can't think of any explanation for this and it might just be a coincidence.

Anyway, one thing which I suspect might be contributing to a more diverse field is not only the ruleset but the fact that WC3 had open enrollment, while WC1 and 2 allocated a limited number of slots per country. There may have been a bit of pressure on the people who were lucky enough to get a slot to not "waste" it - after all, it might feel like a bit of a "Screw You" to the people sitting back home to take a World Cup slot and then play Underworld or something. It's a theory at least. But it looks like every Stunty team gained market share. Actually every single Tier 2 team gained at least a little bit.

(insert tongue-in-cheek joke about Gaixo helping make a ruleset which is great for Necromantic, then playing Necromantic)

See you guys in Lucca!