The Great Roster Cull

[Joemanji]

If you want to run an all Marauder roster then you obviously start with 2-3 big guys and drop them as the Marauders skill up and inflate TV.

[garion]

Exactly.

[SillySod]

If you want to run an all Marauder roster then you obviously start with 2-3 big guys and drop them as the Marauders skill up and inflate TV.

.... which is clearly less effective than it would be if those big guys had mutations.

If you let the big guys get claw then the team can go uber in the space of a couple of games. If the marauders get claw then the team will reach a higher form of uber but it won't get there until it has played a good number of games. I can see why you might think that this is a win overall but I think it would be bad news for traditional tabletop environments.

Regardless, the point seems moot while skills are costed so badly. Skill costing is the root source of the problem so that should be the first change. Then, given the new context, I would look at solving any problems that the pact team causes. Heck, there might not even be a problem.

[garion]

To be honest with my proposed change to pact would coincide with random mutations and a major to buff to a number of the mutations if I had it my way. So it would be a different kettle of fish altogether really

Obviously not to everyone's taste but I would love random mutations back sooooo much.

[Colin]

I guess it is true, all threads on TFF eventually devolve into a CLAWPOMB thread.

[SunDevil]

So, let me sum up the consensus:

"We should expand the number of teams to double or more, we should shrink the number of teams to half or less, we should include Khorne, we should exclude Khorne, we should ban teams that do not fit the fluff, we should include teams like Apes because they fit the fluff."

Good luck with that. At least it has the makings of a good comedy sketch.

Well, that was going to be the intent of this thread from the start, right? We get to throw in our terrible ideas (well, some of the others are good, mine are terrible!) and then all, hopefully, have a good laugh and those of us that can go out for a pint to discuss? Sounds good to me!

Here's what I would do -

1. Have the Rules Committee meet every 3rd year to look at the current ruleset. Collect data from leagues around the world. Leagues would apply or be grandfathered in to contribute. Compile suggestions and the data and the committee would decide what would change and what would not. They would also look at new teams - new team suggestions would be culled by the committee to 3 'finalists'. These three would be playtested around the world at individual league's discretion. At the end of that 3-year cycle, the committee would select one new team to join the ranks (as well as issuing any rule and/or roster changes).

2. I was surprised to see support for blanding out the rosters by making every team full of "Blitzers, Linemen and Blockers" and removing fun flavor names. I say bring BACK the old flavor names like Storm Vermin, Longbeards, Dragon Warrior, etc. and even add a few more!

Like Thadrin said, massive roster and/or rule changes all at once would be a mistake so I'd also be in favor of smaller, incremental changes.

Now, my wacky (current) roster suggestions, which many of you have suggested already.

Amazons - Keep the 6337 statline. It makes this roster unique among all BB rosters. I do like the idea of changing the starting Blodge of the Blitzers to Wrestle/Dodge.

Chaos - Change the name to Khorne and be done with it.

Chaos Dwarves - I'm fine with them, though I hate playing against them. I could see losing the Mino.

Chaos Pact - I share Garion's suggestion of making M a singles skill for the Bigs while dropping P and M to doubles for the Marauders. However, there have been some passionate arguments against in this thread and I am beginning to cool on this one.

Dark Elves - I like this roster, though I may actually like to see the Assassins a bit cheaper to encourage more coaches to hire them. I can also support the argument that very few natural 4AG players should have 8AV so dropping the DE Linemen to 7AV works.

Dwarves - I have liked the idea of Juggs instead of Block on the Trollslayers every since I first heard it (plasmoid I think). I also think the Longbeards need to be scaled back a bit, losing either Tackle or Thick Skull. I'd vote Thick Skull to make the Khemri more unique and to incite (slightly) less riotous rage among the Dwarf coaches.

Elves - I'm fine here really though I want fewer Elf teams (a 'good' and a 'bad') so maybe merge these guys with Woodies and drop the Highs.

Goblins - 100% biased here but I want them buffed slightly. I DO NOT want them higher than solid Tier 3. My current favorite suggestions I've heard are giving them a 3rd rostered Troll or making Right Stuff immune to the blocking half of Tackle. Either of those would work for me. I WISH the Bomber had Pass access but that might just be too good. Besides, you're only giving him that chart for HMP so why not just give him that skill and bump his cost to 70k like the Pogoer and Fanatic? At least HMP is still sort of random - a Goblin (and Tier 3) cornerstone. Having the Bomber eventually be Pass/Accurate/Safe Throw is TOO reliable.

Halflings - I can't give love to my Goblins without including their hungrier, chubbier brethren, the Flings. A ROSTERED hotpot should do the trick.

High Elves - Drop. Replace with a second Goblin team (Squig Chasers) or a steam-powered golem team or, love them or hate them, Brettonians. Was that Digger's head exploding?

Humans - Bump Catchers to 8AV and lose the Ogre. I'd like to see player types NOT be spread around to so many teams - see also my Orc/Woodie changes. Want to play an Ogre? Play Ogres or Pact.

Khemri - Thick Skull on all 4 Ras (same cost), drop Decay and add Break Tackle on TGs, bump to 120k. Rename TGs Mummies. This does affect Undead below...

Lizardmen - No change.

Necromantic - Either drop outright (hate to lose the Wolves but they are not really Undead so a straight merger is problematic and I don't buy that Norse Werewolf garbage) or just go crazy with them - rename them the Cursed, drop the Wights and Ghouls, bump Wolves to 0-4 and play ball! While I would be interested in testing that team, I think the least of all evils here is a merger with Undead (see below). See Elf coaches? I don't want JUST Elves reduced, I hit the Undead as well...though not as hard.

Norse - Remove the last 'e' from all the positional names - Berzerkr, Runnr, Throwr. to give them more Old Norse flavor, no different than Egyptian-izing 'Blitzer' to 'Blitz-Ra' for the Khemri and give back the Ulfwerenr name. The Yeti is fine, keep calling him Yeti.

Nurgle - Either let the Beast mutate on singles rolls (no different than the Chaos Minotaur doing it) or give the Pests starting Foul Appearance. I'd prefer the Beast buff. All else is good, love this roster.

Ogres - With the other Stunties getting some love here, I'll include the Ogres. Do NOT give them Goblins back or Flings because it dilutes the other Stunty rosters. Keep the Snots, they are unique! I also cannot get behind the idea of giving them 8 Ogres - too much beef there and dangerously close to exiting Tier 3. I'd reduce their RRs by 10k and give the Snots +MA. Again, NOT my ideas, just the ones I've heard that I like the best.

Orcs - Drop the Troll, drop the Goblins and raise the Blitzers to 90k. I would also drop the Throwers but this may be too far for other coaches.

Skaven - Drop the Rat Ogre. Everything else is fine.

Slann - I am 100% with Shteve-O (and others) that skill spam on a roster can set that roster apart and certainly NOT be lazy design when that skill (or skills) so accurately represents the race of the players while at the same time providing us with a unique and balanced roster. What I would advocate is dropping the price of the Blitzers by 10k and renaming them 'Safety'. Really emphazie thier 'Defense First' philosophy and, again, make the overall BB positional list more interesting, not less.

Undead - Drop Mummies completely, drop Ghouls to 0-2, add 0-2 Werewolves and 0-2 Flesh Golems as Necro refugees. Also drop Skeletons to help differentiate this team from Khemri even more. With 2 Wolves, 2 Golems, 2 Wights, 2 Ghouls and Zombies but no Skeletons, this is really a modified Necro team instead of a modifed Undead team but I like the name Undead so much better.

Underworld - I have no problems here.

Vampires - I'm good here as well.

Wood Elves - Drop the Tree altogether and then merge the team with the Elves. I'll let better Elf coaches than myself (which is to say, ALL of them!) decide the details. I just think 4 Elf teams is too many and 2 (1 good, 1 evil) would be enough.

Fun thread! I am surprised that some coaches would trim our 24 rosters down to half that or even less! Too boring for me! I'd trim down to 21 (drop Necro and 2 Elves) but immediately raise back to 24 with some new teams (Goblin Squig Chasers, Steam Powed Golems, etc.) or even revamped former teams (Bretonnians, etc). And while I obviously love the Apes, even I know they would be far down the list of any potential new team additions. Maybe someday though.

[Rolex]

I have nothing against Clawpomb. But the thing about clawpomb is that you have got to earn it.
The teams that get it on single rolls have a very hard time on the beginning, usually with no skills.

Only 3 (and a half) big guys have access to MC on singles and only 2 on mutations.
That's because it's VERY powerful.

Random mutations are very fluffy, good for laughts. On the side of playability they are awful.

As it stands, nobody wold play orcs, dwarfs, CD, etc in a rookie league with CP. Nice.

In a naf tourney let's see... Italian Open is 1.100k 120k for skills.
3 Claw on the big guys, 2 guards, a leader. 13 guys. Nice.

Nope, doesn't work.
@ Sundevil: they are not passionate. They are logical.

[RogueThirteen]

To be honest with my proposed change to pact would coincide with random mutations and a major to buff to a number of the mutations if I had it my way. So it would be a different kettle of fish altogether really

If this was the original context of your proposed changes, why not specify that up front and not just after everyone comes to consensus that your changes to Pact would have largely negative consequences on the team's play style and balance?

Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here about how roster design is much more difficult than it appears?

[guillaumetexas]

I am really surprised that some posts (Sundevil) are suggesting we should drop big guys from rosters. They are what makes BB frustratingly challenging. Ogres and kroxigors have to deal with bonehead, minotaurs and rat ogres have wild animals, trolls are just too stupid, yet they all can crunch players like there is no tomorrow.

I say we keep the big guys.

It seems to me like the consensus is on small changes: Go from 4 to perhaps at least 3 elf teams: 1 good, 1 bad, 1 wood. Go from 3 to 2 dead team: 1 khemri and 1 necromantic.

I would argue that we can fuse together chaos pact and underworld in a chaos cultist team that would include goblins, skaven, marauders, minotaurs and ogres. Sort of chaos but not really.

The rest are just small tweaks to roster which would not change the game overall.

Now my question is: who will do this and produce a "semi-official" LRB 6.1

[SunDevil]

I would like to drop the Woodie Tree, the Human Ogre and the Skaven Rat Ogre. I would keep both Kroxigors, the Beast, most of the Minos, all 3 CP bigs, the Yeti, the Goblin Trolls, the Fling Trees, the UW Troll, and any others I'm forgetting.

I only want 3 removed, a small percentage of the overall Big Guy population.

[Colin]

"Fun flavour names" , sorry but adding WHFB unit names to BB positions isn't "fun" flavour, it's WHFB flavour. BB is a sports parody game, keep the sports related position names and get rid of any of the WHFB influenced ones we still have. If you want a WHFB flavoured game, play WHFB. I you think having sports related names is boring, then again, play WHFB instead of BB. We don't need a team for every WHFB army out there (that's the only reason we have High Elf, Wood Elf, Khorne Deamons, etc), we just need enough rosters for the basic races (not a bunch of variants of a race) and for different playing styles.
The biggest problem with BB is that it is controlled by GW and their contrant attempts to turn it into a "gateway" game for WHFB.

[Rolex]

Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here about how roster design is much more difficult than it appears?

Superquote!
I made some Khorne Rosters while i was waiting for the Cyanide came out.

Guess what? They were all worse than this one.

In general I find that the ideas thrown around for change are:
10% or less very good
20% nice but not very relevant
70% terrible as in "Grey Knights and 6ed WFB skaven" terrible.

[Shteve0]

To the pitiful handfull of trolls who, in their apparently infinite wisdom, come in to these threads to tell others simply that their opinions and ideas are "pointless", "bad" or "irrelevant"... your one-eyed lack of creativity and ability to generate a reasoned argument is genuinely depressing. Few if any people are saying that their ideas are good, this is a pretty tongue in cheek thread. No-one's forcing you to read it, and you apparently missed the point anyway. With all due respect - contribute to the discussion or don't post.

[guillaumetexas]

The biggest problem with BB is that it is controlled by GW and their contrant attempts to turn it into a "gateway" game for WHFB.

Indeed, GW has completely lost the plot on this. Blood Bowl is the BEST gateway game for their 2 main core games.

Those 12 years old boys are far more likely to start playing warhammer if they start with get a gateway game like BB. After all , that's how I got into whfb.

From the perspective of getting more players into the hobby, I do not understand GW reluctance with BB. Those dedicated BB player who will never play anything else will keep on coming to the store and play/purchase BB and paint there, and other BB players who "thought" they were dedicated but slowly get to appreciate the other games might start a small warhammer army because they can see it in the store...Win/Win solution as far as I am concerned.

I do agree with keeping the fun flavor of BB. However I don't agree that we have lost it. All star players are play on words. As for the name of the "units" being too warhammery... I don't really see the problem with that, since most of us who play in leagues give our players names. Khemri Tomb guardians may be named after a WHFB units, but the 4 of them on field are called Horus, Osiris or some other egyptian name.

[Shteve0]

I would like to drop the Woodie Tree, the Human Ogre and the Skaven Rat Ogre. I would keep both Kroxigors, the Beast, most of the Minos, all 3 CP bigs, the Yeti, the Goblin Trolls, the Fling Trees, the UW Troll, and any others I'm forgetting.

I only want 3 removed, a small percentage of the overall Big Guy population.

I'd drop the tree altogether, but only because I can't fins a place for it on my theoretical rosters. I feel like Ogres plus Halflings would be a blast and is pretty 2ed in flavour, and I want rid of that Wood Elf team!

Agree with Colin on the naming convention, though think some positionals should keep their name (witch elves and trollslayers, for example, don't sit well as 'catchers'). There's a happy compromise to be found, I'm sure.

Chance - what about adding the Rat Ogre to the Underworld list, either as well as or instead of the Warpstone Troll?