Cyanide releases their Khorne Roster

[Smeborg]

Fassbinder: I agree that fear factor is important. It helps against many opponents, but not against the best coaches.

plasmoid: I find the rookie Bloodthirster quite a bit better than a Minotard, mainly because of Juggernaut. He will not concede turnovers when blitzing. Otherwise I agree that the Bloodthirster makes for a lot of TV bloat.

All the best.

[Megr1m]

I posted a while back about this, speculating that a Thirster w/o MB is an option, since it doesn't tie-up needed xp into a single unit, nor does it force you to always blitz with him. I'm into my second season now (2-2-0, I'll post team stats and feedback update once I have time), but so far - with Break Tackle/Guard - he is performing admirably. No unneeded xp, good at repositioning for the G assist, can occasionally BT into a cage or hit a high armour piece with Claw.

I'm somewhere around 1500 atm, so I'm not sure how this hold up once the TV climbs higher.

[Smeborg]

TWO 2-TURN TDS IN ONE MATCH!
-----------------------------------------------------
Khorne are simply weird, there's no hiding from it. I just drew a game 2-2 against developed Humies (similar TV) by scoring twice in 2 turns. Just like a bash team, right?

I was getting mashed, my opponent received and put 6 of my players in the dugout in the first half (including a BH Bloodthirster on turn 3). I had had great chances in this half, including a Blitz!, later surfing the Humie ball carrier, and nearly holding onto the ball at the death with a chance for a turnover score. But it was not to be.

With only 10 men for the second half, I decided to move quickly, and put a Blodge Bloodletter into scoring position. A 4+ hand-off was required on turn 2, leaving the Bloodletter with a blitz and 2 GFIs to score on turn 2. I then got mashed some more, but my opponent kindly scored in time for me to have 2 turns left (in his place I would have stalled), and I managed to score with a passing play, after the ball-carying Blodge Bloodletter survived 4 dice of blocks.

Both scores were similar. My opponent had a Kicker. I put my AG4 Blodge Bloodletter in the centre of my half, and used my S-Hands/Pass Pit Fighter (deployed deep) to get the ball to him. The AG4 Bloodletter then used his Dodge and made a hand-off or pass in the second turn of the drive.

Hope that's of interest.

[Edit: I realised I must have cheated in the above match, by taking a "17th turn" to which I was not entitled. So after checking with my opponent, I have changed the result to a 1-2 loss.]

[Smeborg]

Here is the team after 16 matches:

Bloodthirster: M-Blow, Guard (23 SPPs)
Herald: Block (10)
Herald: Block (9)
Bloodletter: +AG, Dodge, Block (35)
Bloodletter: S-Hands, +MA, Dodge
Bloodletter: Block, Dodge (30)
Bloodletter: Block, Dodge (22)
Pit Fighter: S-Hands, Pass (20)
Pit Fighter: Wrestle, D-less (18)
Pit Fighter: Wrestle (10)
Pit Fighter: Wrestle (8)
Pit Fighter: Leader (6)
Pit Fighter: - (0)
2RR, 7FF, 1AC/1CL, Apoth, 310,000 in Treasury, TV177 (Spiralling Expenses has kicked in)

Wrestle+Dauntless worked very well, it took down a ST6 Ogre at one point in the last match. Now that the team's ball carriers are working harmoniously together (see above post), I am much happier with the team's development. Note that I consider a Bloodletter with S-Hands to be essential early on, so you are always going to be stuck with such a player (I don't believe in retiring fit players).

I have been extraordinarily lucky with Regen rolls, it has saved the Bloodletters (typically I pass the roll for Dead, SI and MNG players, and pass it for BH players). Note that the Bloodletters are also hogging the SPPs, 2 of them are on 3 skills, the others are close. The Linos with Wrestle are also somehow surviving.

I expect to give some Guard to the Bloodletters (3rd skill on the 2 yet to skill up), and M-Blow as second skill to the Heralds, it feels right for the way they play. That will leave me with only 3 Guard at most.

Hope that's of interest.

[plasmoid]

Hi all,
I've kicked around ideas for buffing the team (as a house rule) before.
Rather than something more outlandish, it has been suggested to me here, that Price cuts might be the best approach.

Anyway, I was messing around with the pricing formula the other day, and it struck me that the woes of the Khorne team may indeed be due to overpricing.
Here' my thinking:

A) The team has a lot of TV tied up in skills that are only good for blitzing. Combined with a big guy that will often need the blitz action.
That's a lot of dead TV, and it shows.
(I'd argue 30K on each Bloodletter and Heralds. That's 180K tied up in blitzing skills. And Bloodthirster goes on top of that).

B) We already know from the Beastman on the Khorne team that Horns is just 10K. I'd extrapolate that a pure Blitzing skill ought to be just 10K (especially when spammed).
*So to my mind, Bloodletters ought to be 70K. (6337 (30K) + Regen (20K) + Horns (10K) + Jugger (10K)).
*And Heralds ought to be 80K (6338 Frenzy = 60K, Horns (10K), Jugger (10K).
*ReRolls might go to 60K also, just like the Chaos team - that is probably too much change in one swoop.

What do you think?
Cheers
Martin

[dode74]

the woes of the Khorne team

As discussed elsewhere, there are no woes unless you're trying to change them from T1.5 and narrowing the definition of T1.

[plasmoid]

Hi Dode,
well - this isn't about narrowing tier 1. But it is about changing them from tier 1.5 into a proper tier 1 team.
Mind you, not one of them power-teams.
Just one with a decent win-rate. Closer to 50 than 45.

But I guess we agree they're tier 1.5
Do we also agree that they're overpriced. From an objective point of view, I mean?

Cheers
Martin

PS - I wouldn't mind also hearing from someone without a vested interest in the team (i.e. actively making them a tier 1.5 team)

[dode74]

well - this isn't about narrowing tier 1. But it is about changing them from tier 1.5 into a proper tier 1 team.
Mind you, not one of them power-teams.
Just one with a decent win-rate. Closer to 50 than 45.

You contradict yourself: you don't want to narrow tier 1 but you do want them closer to the middle of it because they are at the bottom end of it...

Do we also agree that they're overpriced. From an objective point of view, I mean?

Well that rather depends on your standard of "objective". Forgetting for a moment that TV is not an objective measure of on-pitch value, and accepting that the pricing guide is as close to an objective standard as we have (regardless of the fact that the guide itself isn't based on anything more than opinion) then no, they are not overpriced. They are only overpriced if you accept your own idea that "blitzing skills" should only cost 10k, which is itself a subjective change to those objective guidelines.

What I do think is that they "suffer" from the same issue as Slann: they start with a whole bunch of skills which up their TV, and that means they have to spend the first part of their development getting the basics (block, dodge, tackle etc) before they can consider making real killers or support pieces. If they do make those supports early without the basics (and Khorne needs guard early on) then they are fragile and hard to level by nature. This means that not only do they lose their support pieces early, but that they are probably a bit less effective at mid-range TVs than some other teams.

How to buff Khorne has been covered at length in many places. If a buff were needed (and it isn't) then I would first drop RR cost to 60k, then add Regen to the Heralds for free. The lower RR cost will mean they can be bought sooner, and will have less of an effect on the mid-range TV; the Herald regen will make for better longevity on those pieces.

[Smeborg]

Hi Martin - I don't think Khorne are underpriced, IMO they do not need a "buff" and are fine as they are. It would be very easy to make them overpowered. They are fun to play.

At a more "philosophical" level, I love your enthusiasm, but I regret I don't agree with your project to "standardise" the performance of the BB races. In both leagues and tournaments (especially leagues), having some races perform better, and some worse, is what makes BB the great game that it is. It allows veterans and noobs to cheerfully co-exist in the same arena. Without this difference in performance between races, the hobby would IMO have collapsed a long time ago.

At a more practical level, I suggest you are playing a game of "the old woman who swallowed a fly". Ever more adjustments will be required to maintain the mythical "parity".

All the best.

[MKL]

(...)
At a more "philosophical" level, I love your enthusiasm, but I regret I don't agree with your project to "standardise" the performance of the BB races. In both leagues and tournaments (especially leagues), having some races perform better, and some worse, is what makes BB the great game that it is. It allows veterans and noobs to cheerfully co-exist in the same arena. Without this difference in performance between races, the hobby would IMO have collapsed a long time ago.
(...).

Hi Smeborg.
About that point I got a different experience. In Plasmoid's league for example, there is a tendency for the most competitive coaches (experienced, talented and driven) to cling to the most competitive races (Dark & Wood elves, Necros, Undead, etc), while the less competitive races are played by the casual gamers. And this deepens the gap between "winners" and "losers".
This is one of the reason that has me like Plasmoid's narrower tier enterprise.
In my experience, what keep the hobby alive is the fairly high randomness of the game, so that there is alway a chance to win or lose against the odds.

[dode74]

In Plasmoid's league for example, there is a tendency for the most competitive coaches (experienced, talented and driven) to cling to the most competitive races (Dark & Wood elves, Necros, Undead, etc), while the less competitive races are played by the casual gamers. And this deepens the gap between "winners" and "losers".

This is a metagame issue which can be resolved in other ways than by changing things in-game. For example you could limit the number of a race which is allowed and get people to pick in accordance with how badly they did the previous season. Sure, that can be abused by deliberately tanking, but if a coach is tanking then exactly how competitive is he? Plenty of people like things the way they are, so why change things for them when you can house rule however you like?

[MKL]

In Plasmoid's league for example, there is a tendency for the most competitive coaches (experienced, talented and driven) to cling to the most competitive races (Dark & Wood elves, Necros, Undead, etc), while the less competitive races are played by the casual gamers. And this deepens the gap between "winners" and "losers".

This is a metagame issue which can be resolved in other ways than by changing things in-game. For example you could limit the number of a race which is allowed and get people to pick in accordance with how badly they did the previous season. Sure, that can be abused by deliberately tanking, but if a coach is tanking then exactly how competitive is he? Plenty of people like things the way they are, so why change things for them when you can house rule however you like?

Yeah, it can be resolved in many ways: like limiting the number of races that can be chosen (as you like) or changing the rule for some race (as Plasmoid choose), or maybe implementing handicap for better coaches (a fancyful variant on your idea). I'm not really advocating a solution or another.
What I was responding in particular was:

In both leagues and tournaments (especially leagues), having some races perform better, and some worse, is what makes BB the great game that it is. It allows veterans and noobs to cheerfully co-exist in the same arena. Without this difference in performance between races, the hobby would IMO have collapsed a long time ago.

Simply put, the metagame situation extolled by Smeborg didn't match my own experience.

[dode74]

Fair enough - I think what I was saying was that Plasmoid is proposing a change, rather than a house rule, to the roster. I'm not opposed to any house rules at all, and suggested a couple.

The metagame is often to do with what personalities do with the rules, rather than the specific rules themselves. Hence the need to house rule in particularly competitive environments, e.g. MM and B.

Yes, purists, it's a house ruled roster anyway, but it is an official roster in other places.

[Megr1m]

The only thing I'll say on the topic of changing the roster, would be to maybe, maybe, think about slightly lowering the rr cost. That would be all. In the overall scheme of things, such change is purely theoretical, as I have differing opinions on 'balance' &c.

[plasmoid]

Ah - it gets political so fast...

It seems to me that Dode and Megr1m and Dode tacitly admit that Khorne is a weaker than average team. And that pricing could have something to do with that. Not quite so sure about Smeborg.
If you go back and read my first post, I was only talking about house ruling, and whether pricing might be a solution. The premise is that the pricing is certainly harsh, and may well be a contributing factor to them being tier 1.5 or bottom of tier 1.

This really didn't have to go into the philosophy of 'balancing', but I'll happily explain my view Again:
I don't think an isolated Group of weak teams does the game any favours.
*I think it is not a good idea to restrict good coaches to just a few teams.
*Nor do I think it is a good idea to have teams that will fall apart on any newcomer who didn't do his homework.
*Nor do I think it is a good idea that in a league of equals a large portion of teams will leave you at a severe disadvantage. The result is less variety.
And variety, IMO, is what has kept this game alive for so long.
In a nutshell - it is very easy to house rule in a handicap for the super coach.

Dode said:

You contradict yourself: you don't want to narrow tier 1 but you do want them closer to the middle of it because they are at the bottom end of it...

Actually, moving one team wouldn't narrow the Width of the tier.
But with the numbers you've quoted, there's a fairly high risk that they're not within tier 1.
Pushing their mean towards 50% would make it a lot more likely. Now that we don't have enough data to know for certain.

Well that rather depends on your standard of "objective".

Fair enough. In a discussion as slippery as this, 'objective' was never gonna fly.
How about 'beyond reasonable doubt' then?
I'm glad you reference the pricing guide. Because it doesn't mention juggernaut at all. It does however put Horns at 10K (several times). Comparing what horns does and what jugger does, I can't see a good argument for making Jugger a 20K skill. One might gamble on some overwhelming synergy effect - but then I think one would also have to consider that 6-7 players are paying for it, and only one gets to use it. (Unlike Slann, BTW).

Cheers
Martin