The Great Roster Cull

[Heff]

Question for Shteve0 on his roster suggestions. Is it correct that the Dwarfs no longer have AG3 on their team at all?

Yep. Two reasons: (1) Dwarves are not nearly as agile as humans in my mind, and that makes them AG2. (2) I find if I start from (entirely personal) stipulation that dwarves should be strong, ST3 stunties, I can't go higher than AG2 on any of their players from a practical viewpoint. A 5338 stunty blitzer, for example, could dodge into a cage on a 3+ and throw a one die block (with block) on the ball carrier. These guys would have a 50% chance of getting into the cage to do that, which is still ridiculous. The runners have break tackle to allow a single incident per turn of improving that roll to 3+, so it also gives them a chance of getting through defensive screens at a push (I also like the dwarf runner having sure hands and break tackle, thematically, so I'm pretty happy with the roster overall).

Given that all that, I can't see a way round Ag2 across the board. It'd still be T1, I think (particularly as Woodies are gone) but it would hopefully be more fun to play with and against.

Still, never gonna happen, so you can relax

Do this and I would play them.

[Darkson]

I'm not fond of the dwarf roster, but given a choice between the official and the suggested roster, and I'll take the official one.
Dwarf as Stunty? No thanks.

[Shteve0]

I'm not fond of the dwarf roster, but given a choice between the official and the suggested roster, and I'll take the official one.
Dwarf as Stunty? No thanks.

Cool, as you like. Why not though, if I may ask? I mean, I've looked at the models once or twice, and they look pretty stunty to me.

[Digger Goreman]

I still wouldn't play dwarves... but at least they might be more interesting and challenging for others to play and me to play against... perhaps....

[Heff]

I still wouldn't play dwarves... but at least they might be more interesting and challenging for others to play and me to play against... perhaps....

I really like those gladiator dwarves but as the roster stands its too filthy to play.

[Darkson]

Cool, as you like. Why not though, if I may ask? I mean, I've looked at the models once or twice, and they look pretty stunty to me.

They might be short, but they're not breakable - anything but. No way should they be taking more injuries per armour break than a human or orc.

That said, a non-dodge ST3 Stunty team would be an interesting add, but it says "Dwarf" to me less than the Quorn roster says Khorne.

[Shteve0]

That's very true, and it's unfortunate.

Someone once suggested that "Thick Skull" should be renamed "Relentless". I liked it then, and I still like it now.

I'm definitely not suggesting a rules rewrite (that's dangerous, and I'm pretty much only concerned with bringing fluff and design consistency and nerfing pretty much everything along the way), but if Thick SKull/Relentless gave -1 to all injury rolls for the player (as opposed to the KO jiggery pokery) it would outweigh the stunty rule. It would also be a pretty mega skill for zombies, thematically, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Other alternative would be to separate "stunty" into "stunty" (no dodge modifiers) and "brittle" (+1 to injury rolls). And I'm definitely not suggesting that either.

Still, only the musings of an idiot, but in the meantime I think Stunty+AV9 at 50k is as close as I can get under the rules to my thinking (since Thick Skull and Stunty is all kinds of messy) and to a different take on the dwarves roster.

[Sandwich]

We need a new skill to split up stunty - Very Short Legs. Does the dodging part of stunty without adding the injury bonus. Also gives -1 to leap rolls (that its going to come up often with dwarves)

[Shteve0]

Lol, comedy genius. I love it

[Rolex]

A dwarf is broader at the shoulders than a human and heavyer. It's short, not small.
Sneaking between playes..... doesn't work. Even more than the bonus to injury.
And we must consider the game inner balance (the meta-game).
By nerfing dwarves you are boosting all the teams Dwarfs are good against.
You take away AG 4... and people only takes guard and killing skills.

A league in Italy made 1 little house rule. They banned the wizard.
In a couple of seasons the league filled up with pure killing teams at the point that rookie teams didn't last one season.
They made houserules and houserules every year but the weren't enough. Ultimately they had to reset the league.
Balance is frail.

Basically posts in this brainstorming of a topic fall under 2 categories.
1-this race/team/AG 4 sucks. Let's wipe it/nerf it so much no one will EVER think of using it (balance? what balance? looks balanced to me like this.)
2-this race is unintersting/doesn't fit the fluff. Let's nerf it by turning it in a killing machine/makeing it a top tier. (boosting? which boosting? It's a nerf!)

I think that if we were to make 2 categories and give away prizes for the worst ideas, we would have 1 helluva competition.

But this topic is very useful. If the BBRC were to be resurrected, and they were looking for candidates, all they would have to do would be to look at this topic and choose who NOT to take.

[koadah]

If they ever do bring back the BBRC I think the rulebook should be split into 3 sections.

1) Rules
2) League play – aimed at TT and online leagues
3) Open perpetual play, aimed at open online divisions like Cyanide and FUMBBL.

There are probably more online games played than tabletop and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cyanide game made GW a lot more money than their Bloodbowl models did (this doesn’t factor in people buying their other models to make into teams though).

What would you put into section 3?

Fumbbl Ranked is not the same as Fumbbl Black Box. Black Box is similar but not the same as FOL or Nagg.

Sure the BBRC should give thought to those leagues and consider their test data (when available).
It should be down to the commissioners to decide what is right for their leagues though.

Do you want those guys to be vilified even more than they are now.

[Shteve0]

I'm going to sum up that Rolex post for anyone short on time: "All ideas are bad blah blah blah If you even discuss the rules in a jokey manner, you're stupid blah blah blah I'm great."

What makes you qualified to speak on behalf of a future imagined BBRC? What a douche.

And READ THE OP. If you're incapable of suspending reality for five minutes and applying your imagination to this effort, don't post. It's not hard. Did your mother never tell you that, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all?

EDIT: Ground rules added to OP. You have all been warned. I'm getting my flamethrower out, and any more trolls lurking up in here are getting both barrels to the face.

[SunDevil]

I'm going to sum up that Rolex post for anyone short on time: "All ideas are bad blah blah blah If you even discuss the rules in a jokey manner, you're stupid blah blah blah I'm great."

What makes you qualified to speak on behalf of a future imagined BBRC? What a douche.

And READ THE OP. If you're incapable of suspending reality for five minutes and applying your imagination to this effort, don't post. It's not hard. Did your mother never tell you that, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all?

Shteve-O, can I get written confirmation that I am on your 'good' list? I don't like the looks of the 'bad' list.

The removal of M access from singles on the Marauders would make the focus around the big guys and stop the pure evil roster they are now, where people play with big guys until marauders are skilled up then drop all the big guys, have a killer roster that is reliable (which big guys just aren't) and get loads of nice inducements on top.

Also I am sick of hearing about balance. If you think giving big guys M access and taking it away from marauders would make this roster more powerful than say Undead, any of the Elves, Skaven or Dwarves then you are kidding your self. The high RR cost, the terrible starter players (minus the dark elf) the unreliability of Big Guys would always prevent this team from being a top tier side at low TV. The change would only make the roster more interesting at high TV and would mean people would actually use their Big Guys. Any roster that is more powerful for completely ignoring their most expensive players at high TV is seriously flawed imo.

I'm sticking with Garion on this one. I actually used to want M access on single rolls for the CPact bigs WITHOUT any concession! I love his idea of dropping P and M access on the Marauders to doubles rolls to counter the buff to the Bigs.

Yeah, they'd get three MiB/Claw players after 18 SPPs and three skills but those players are all still WA/Bonehead/RyS, have no Block, and are all LONERS. And now you won't have 5 or more CLAWPOMB Marauders running around.

Also, I want MORE Renegades on this team! How about a single Chaos Dwarf? Or a lone Beastman, maybe a solitary Pestigor? Even an isolated Human would be fun! I wonder what current BB positional would most accurately represent Snake Sanders? In the fantasyland where this happens, I'd drop the Marauders down to G access only without doubles.

[Shteve0]

I'm sorry, you're quite right. Mouthing off is unbecoming.

I guess the main issue with balance - besides the fact that this thread is totally not about improving the game, but rather about people's own crazy redesign wishlists (if you're thinking it through, you're doing it wrong) - is that not many would argue we have balance at the moment, and it's inherently difficult to define. If you define it by win %, at what point in the development curve? Equal TVs at level x? Equal games for a predefined league of 24 teams? The fact that we talk about tiers and undercosting and that projects like the NTBB exist totally undermine this point. And I'm certainly not saying it's badly unbalanced - I love this game - but we're not talking about some perfectly poised eco-system here.

Second, a long term league somewhere in Italy once banned wizards and it spiralled out of control (sound like a slightly skeletal tale, but let's go with it). After a certain amount of time (assumed to be several seasons), it became bash heavy. What a revelation! Unfortunately, that's the nature of long term leagues - they tend towards the murderous as high attrition teams skill up to crack opponents almost at will. This is an established rule, and is exactly why there is a suggestion that long-term cycles (perpetual, typically) might like to get a different ruleset to the prevailing TT league of 1-3 season shelf lives.

Third, if the BBRC does ever reform, I hope that those that are on it don't approach it from the point that the game is totally sacrosanct and any changes will ruin it. How depressing would that be? I'd like to see a BBRC that comes up with fun design ideas that catch me off guard, as the rosters have done several times in the past. There's so much design space to be explored to introduce new game dynamics. The mecca for me would see the top table weakened, the T3 teams left exactly as they are (power wise) and some of the more predictable teams reworked to make them fun and individual again. I want a BBRC to surprise and delight me, and explore the huge design spaces that haven't previously been looked at. And I'd want Galak to chair it, yes because he's made an incredible contribution to the game, but mostly because he has a clear head and can provide a reasoned logic to support his ideas.

[Shteve0]

I wonder what current BB positional would most accurately represent Snake Sanders? In the fantasyland where this happens, I'd drop the Marauders down to G access only without doubles.

I think Snake Sanders is technically a human blitzer, just slightly deformed. I love the idea that he's not, though, I always wanted to see his race released as a playable roster. Some new world snake-men... lots of prehensile tail... a couple of hypnotic gaze? Maybe some stab?

Re: the marauders, would dropping the S-access not have the desired effect? Two of the CPOMB skills are in S category. I'd like to see a GPM Marauders, I think that'd be fine TBH, with maybe 0-2 GSM Blitzers. The P lineman makes sense to cover Kefft, Lewdgrip and Rex. I like the spam M access, it gives them character, but S access lineman only lends itself to one thing - the collection of power skills - and dropping it would (I believe) encourage more creative mutation selection.

Or, if you wanted to be a complete bastard, how about M access only?