Necros and the definition of cheese

[MKL]

@EastCoast

Interesting data

BBManager with over 8,300 matches for the Necros have them at a solid 53% which is right where Wood Elves are, and good enough for 6th overall.

Excuse me, I need a clarification.

Not a Cyanide player, I was under the impression that BBManager is a software that collect data for a specific league. Where do these 8300 games come from?

Not trying to pick a fight, sincerely asking

[Smeborg]

I have considered Undead the best BB team since 3rd Ed.. I have my best ever league winning streak with them (19 wins in the first 19 games, in 3rd Ed.). Although there have been some changes to their pricing and skill access, I think they still retain their position as best team (just not by quite as much as in 3rd Ed.). 2 non-Loner ST5 players who start with M-Blow, plus 4 ST3 players with starting Dodge, is hard to beat, all at one of the lowest combined prices of any non-joke team.

[EastCoast]

Not trying to pick a fight, sincerely asking

No offense taken. You are right, it is almost exclusively private league data (though there may be a tournament or two sprinkled in there). It should be a fairly good bellweather to show how Necros perform in private leagues, and the answer appear to be "pretty well".

[EastCoast]

I'm not really sure why [Undead] are always given a free pass

They're not. Remember 100k Mummies with G access, 30k Zombies, and 30k Skels? Lot more nerfin' than any other "basic" team has undergone.

Yeah, I was referring to the playing community only. Wood Elves and Dwarves are most frequently cited as being overpowered (from what I see on forums, so this is anecdotal). You rarely, if ever see complaints about the current Undead roster despite the fact that it outperforms both the Wood Elves and Dwarves.

[Digger Goreman]

Light-hearted, or not, Sme' you got (probably what you wanted and) what you're gonna get here on good ol' TFF: "anectdotal facts" trotted out as truths, sans any reproducable sanity, and instant dismissal of mechanical, rules-based examples.... You set me up to be shouted down... and that's fine... people have to support their entrenched "camps" by fighting off any "bogie man" that threatens their inner conceived realities.... And it is so....

I'll attempt a little "related to the original thread", reproducably verifiable treatment of the subject before giving this thread the kiss of death:

The undeniable, thus unable to be concretely addressed, examples of the superiority of wardancers over werewolves is based on the strongest winning mechanics in Blood Bowl: Blocking Dice and the Agility Table.... It will take a werewolf 31 spp and an Agility upgrade to eclipse a standard wardancer.... By which time, the wardancer has three more skills, one of which is leap with its nearly unbelievable synergies with Ag4 (not to mention Ag 5 possibilities).... Perhaps anectdotal, but I'll trot it on my way out, the best way I've seen against me in trying to limit my werewolves is to "tag" them with another player.... Assuming that the opposing player is of like strength, I must block them (best scenario I go down 1/3 of the time), blitz them (ditto and a clever player tags the square to draw me away), or dodge (going down 1/3 of the time).... "Twinky" the wardancer blocks you down/away 83% of the time, blitzes you and moves away 83% of the time, or just dodges to open field 83% of the time.... These are all on "2+" and twice as good as the wolf.... Is Ag4 really that good? (<rhetorical questions>) You don't see a plethora of Frenzy Wardancers or Leaping Werewolves do you? Calling them strings changes nothing....

These, of course, are symptoms of an age-old design flaw in Blood Bowl: creating Ag 4 "finesse/agility"... ah, hell, let's just call them what they are: "Avoidance" teams.... Avoidance, on a 2+, allows you to do unopposed actions on a 2+.... When they have to they'll play a minimal of "football", but the Ag 4s are the track and field meet of the game... running, leaping and dodging... nearly total avoidance.... (Overheard at a past league: "Why aren't your elven teams blocking each other?" "Oh, they might get hurt!") As a non-Ag 4 opposition team, you cannot beat them at avoidance and you must come to grips with them to block/blitz... being as they excel in avoidance (anything but a 1!) you're down to 3 blocks at the start and 1 blitz a turn (unless they get silly enough to engage you).... So they're most often running off on a 1+ and you are: 1/2 of the time (at best) taking one them down x 15/36 breaking armor... that's a 21% chance of doing the Ag4, and one third of the time you go down! So it's your 1 in 5 vs their 5 in 6.... Makes no sense....

So you have to give up playing "football" and go after "flesh", pounding where you can, and gang-fouling what's down... hoping the dice will help you out.... Not fun....

Ag 4's "viral" cousin is the "spamming" of starting skills.... Kings of the hill being block and dodge, or the combined blodge.... Staying up and taking your opponents down give you the most opportunities to let armor breaking dice do their thing.... Dwarves, Amazons, Norse are tops among abusers and persistent perennial faves for tournaments.... Exacerbating the spam teams is the spamming of AV9.... The "necessity" of the proposed Banking rules is because spammy AV9 teams, and avoidance teams, are so damned good at surviving that when they do avoid an eradication campaign (see above paragraph) they can replace any occasional loss out of pocket.... They have become uber teams.... Orcs also tend into this category simply because of scads of survivable armor....

We haven't even discussed cheap rerolls....

Well, so long to this thread... be sure you all entrench well and chew your words thoroughly before spitting them out.... And don't bite your tongues too often...!

[Coach Grievous]

These, of course, are symptoms of an age-old design flaw in Blood Bowl: creating Ag 4 "finesse/agility"... ah, hell, let's just call them what they are: "Avoidance" teams.... Avoidance, on a 2+, allows you to do unopposed actions on a 2+.... When they have to they'll play a minimal of "football", but the Ag 4s are the track and field meet of the game... running, leaping and dodging... nearly total avoidance.... (Overheard at a past league: "Why aren't your elven teams blocking each other?" "Oh, they might get hurt!") As a non-Ag 4 opposition team, you cannot beat them at avoidance and you must come to grips with them to block/blitz... being as they excel in avoidance (anything but a 1!) you're down to 3 blocks at the start and 1 blitz a turn (unless they get silly enough to engage you).... So they're most often running off on a 1+ and you are: 1/2 of the time (at best) taking one them down x 15/36 breaking armor... that's a 21% chance of doing the Ag4, and one third of the time you go down! So it's your 1 in 5 vs their 5 in 6.... Makes no sense....

Odd how differently the game can be viewed. At the moment, where the rules stand, I think it is very easy for bash to tie up agility teams for a subsequent thorough beating. I'd say the game is pre-disposed for bash, though the win percentages would suggest parity (but one thing that really needs to be taken into consideration is the team composition of a league - my experiences, for example, come from bash heavy environments). Perhaps curiously, I'd also really like to see statistics regarding racial performance based on who receives the coin toss.

Indeed, I'd say that the "right way" of playing elves is not to play the exclusive avoidance game. The 1/6 chance (1/36 with re-roll) of failure is dangerous enough to lead to untimely turnovers, which contribute greatly to a bash team being able to conclusively tie up the finesse team in a vice of death. In my opinion it is better to use dodging surgically, to create situational advantage which you use to clear out the team's tackle zones. This also allows you to better control the positioning on the field (both your's and your opponent's).

To brag unnecessarily, I've yet to lose to an elf team since playing LRB6 rules. Of course, our league environment only had one (in addition to my Dark Elves) and the rest of my experience with them is in the Cyanide game, where the black box format does favor bash. Curiously, I don't think I've ever won with elves in there either while my Dark Elves in TT league play made it to the play-offs and dropped out in the first round against the winner, so not much stellar success there either, but certainly better. Too bad we can't easily draw statistics out of the Cyanide game, because I'd love to know how many elf games I've played in total. Still, I find it an interesting observation, especially as in earlier editions I was a big believer in elven supremacy (well, not supremacy, but at least an undeniable effectiveness which I've yet to experience in the current day) on the field.

So, those experiences mold my view of playing agility teams these days. During the years, the introduction of Wrestle truly changed the game, making the good ol' Elven Corridor much less defensible and dissolving the power of Blodging elf ball carriers, but the (entirely necessary) nerfing of Diving Tackle and Stand Firm are also nails in the coffin of olden idea of elven power on the field.

[MKL]

Not trying to pick a fight, sincerely asking

No offense taken. You are right, it is almost exclusively private league data (though there may be a tournament or two sprinkled in there). It should be a fairly good bellweather to show how Necros perform in private leagues, and the answer appear to be "pretty well".

I was not challenging the validity of your data: I just like to know some details about that sample: is this a scheduled league or matchmaking one? Do these teams reset after a set number of games or are them perpetual? Such things.

8000+ games are a sizable sample, and a private league is good as any other environment, I just like to know the context of such data.

I'm not defending any thesis yet, still trying to make my mind

[Smeborg]

Digger - I think this thread has been remarkably civilised so far, and long may it so remain.

All the best.

[Darkson]

You're all wrong - if it ain't Norse or underworld, it's cheese.


Simples.

[EastCoast]

I was not challenging the validity of your data: I just like to know some details about that sample: is this a scheduled league or matchmaking one? Do these teams reset after a set number of games or are them perpetual? Such things.

8000+ games are a sizable sample, and a private league is good as any other environment, I just like to know the context of such data.

I'm not defending any thesis yet, still trying to make my mind

Sure, and there are a couple caveats to the data that are important. It should be mostly scheduled league games. Most of the leagues don't reset, but... Caveat# 1: Some teams (Necros included) have only been around since October of last year. There probably aren't a lot of these teams in the higher end (TV 2000+). Hybrid teams tend to perform worse in that range, so long term, you possibly could see Necros shift down.

Caveat# 2: Cyanide is not quite complete on the ruleset. So, for example the lack of Chaos Dwarves may be pushing some teams (Amazons come to mind) slightly higher because of the absence of one of their natural predators. I'm not sure that Necros would be affected, but I am by no means a Necro expert, nor Chaos Dwarf expert for that matter.

Does that help?

[Smeborg]

I said above that I considered Undead the best team. Actually, I have previously considered (pro-) Elves the best team in a league setting (not in others). Both views are based on "anecdote" (i.e. my own playing experience). So I declare (anecdotally, of course) that Undead and Elves are the 2 best teams. Seems fair to me - one is bash, one is finesse. The main characteristics they share would seem to be mini-maxed player costs, and Dodge on ST3 players (one starts with 4xDodge, the other can take Dodge on all players). I would also put Chaos Dwarfs (bash) and Dark Elves (finesse) high on the list. Maybe I am just lucky to play, and to have played mainly in racially balanced leagues, where most non-joke teams have a chance of winning, if well coached.

[MKL]

Debating the relative worth of 2 different players is like debating the length of a piece of string.
(...)

Father of a 6-weeks-old kid, I wake up every 2 hours in the night to sooth or feed him. Cradling the crying creature on an arm, I scour the internet for something onto witch latch my (remaining?) sanity.
Forum is a bit slacking, and I need some theorybowl to weather out the night, so I plunge in the admittedly pointless question: Werewolf or Wardancer, which is better?

Quick summary:
-The one thing a WW got above a WD is Claws.
-The two things the WD got above WW are AG4 and out-of-the-box effectiveness.

The bonus of AG4 are fairly obvious: better ball handling, mobility, etc, but I want to stress its importance in terms of positioning.
Just to make a comparison, the norse Berseker is a good player, while the WitchElf is an outstanding one. The Berz is the better killer, but he lack the mobility (ma and ag) to exploit his frenzy like the WE does (and with mediocre positioning, Frenzy can turn into a liability).
The WW got a better mobility than the Berz, but is nothing compared to the WD's one. And the WD only need 1 skill, Frenzy, to become a true sideline terror.
Finally, WW ends making a lot of ball handling (catching hand-offs or picking up the ball), but rarely got the luxury of Catch or Sure Hands. People forgot how many ag3 unskilled rolls the Necros does...

Still, in the end, like Drool_Bucket I somewhat “feel” that in the long run the WW is the better player. I think it boil down to 2 things:
1-The WD is good, but in the long run most elven team got some leap-strip ball. And without a stat increase a veteran WD doesn't look much better than a 6-spp one. WD peak early: they start as exceptional players, but over time they lose their “uniqueness”.
2-The WW's Claws. With only a double (M-Blow) the WW become a natural hunter. There are many MB-Claws around, but no one got MA8 and agi-access to strike seemingly everywhere. Only Skaven blitzers approach this, but they are usually overshadowed by GutterRunners, bound to Guard duty, or generally short lived (no dodge-side step defensive combo).

And finally I think... [background noise: ]
oh well, back to diapers

[Aliboon]

Light-hearted, or not, Sme' you got (probably what you wanted and) what you're gonna get here on good ol' TFF: "anectdotal facts" trotted out as truths, sans any reproducable sanity, and instant dismissal of mechanical, rules-based examples.... You set me up to be shouted down... and that's fine... people have to support their entrenched "camps" by fighting off any "bogie man" that threatens their inner conceived realities....

Absolutely priceless!

A wardancer may be better (and I'd certainly say he was) out of the box, but to call him magnitudes better is just wrong. You completely fail to mention how the WWs starting skills/stats make him better at some things than the WD. Funny how regen, frenzy, claws and AV8 don't figure at all in your "analysis".

Yeah, AG4 is an advantage, as is spam block and dodge. The teams that have them also have their disadvantages, but then all teams have advantages and disadvantages. If you can point to any real world statistically significant stats to back up your "cheese" claims which show that these teams are unfairly advantaged in a league setting, then I'd love see them...

If your ire is directed at tournies, then fair enough, but the rules aren't designed for tournies, all tournies are houseruled to some extent and to "fix" them shouldn't nerf teams that are (reasonably) balanced for league play. Your "twink" players (and you may wanna be careful of using that term, I understand it to mean something very different....) may be advantaged in tournies, but as I said, the rules weren't designed for tournies. Read some of the cyanide threads bitching at how chaos and nurgle are too good at high TVs and that it isn't fair that all teams can't compete up there...(something about their matchmaking software and lack of all inducements I think).

In case you hadn't noticed, BB is a team game and Necros function well as a team. In fact one could call them the "cheesiest min/maxed team in bloodbowl!"

[Smeborg]

Another way of looking at individual players is to look at the few player types with aggregate stats of 22:

9247 Gutter Runners
8347 Wardancers, Elf Catchers, High Elf Catchers
8338 Werewolves
7348 Dark Elf, Elf and High Elf Blitzers
6448 Vampires

Now, taking into account starting skills, skill access, stat extremes and nega-traits, I would say that Gutter Runners are perhaps under-priced, and Vampires perhaps over-priced. But that is just an opinion, and such pricing does not necessarily matter at team level. But interestingly, the pricing of the other 7 player types looks about right (relative to each other, at least).

All the best.