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[piratejoe]

I made a thing...

Spoiler: WHYS THE RUM GONE!?! (click to show/hide)

Team Designation: Pirates/Privateers
Species Description: From the edges of civilization to the west, where lands of milk and honey lay untapped and ripe, full of riches, there will always be those whom seek their fortune in unlawful (or lawful if two nations have it out for eachother) means. Be they here to get easy gold for a new ship, getting out of execution, or simply because they felt like changing their way of life to an extent, these ruffian sailors fight in the greatest sport in the world, blood bowl.
Extraordinary Abilities:
Flintlock: A flintlock pistol ready to be fired at some poor sod who made the bad decision of getting in the holders way.
Boarding Hook: A hook designed for embedding in the wood railing of ships, now used to embed itself into the unfortunate people on the other team.
Apothecary Type: A normal human apothecary who is quite happy to be doing something other then twiddling their thumbs or shoving fruit into sailors mouths.

Lineman (0-16):
Lineman icon:
Lineman name: Crewmen
Lineman species/appearance: A crewman with rugged and ripped clothing, usually ordered to do menial labor onboard and mostly there to put the meat in meatshield.
Lineman characteristics: Bog standard movement, agility and strength, below average armour, has dodge. Nothing else

Specialist (0-2):
Specialist icon:
Specialist name: Barrelman
Specialist species/appearance: Naturally, every ship setting sail needs a good Barrelman to look out for other ships in the crows nest, equiped with a spyglass, and a good eye, their observation and the agility required to get to the top of a mast helps them in other ways when off the high seas.
Specialist characteristics: A fast and agile but weak runner who can see the ball coming and catch it unlike particular other races.
Specialist limit: 2

Specialist (0-2):
Specialist icon:
Specialist name: Gunnery Officer
Specialist species/appearance: The Gunnery Officer is a man who, as the name implies, orders the gunners who man the cannons. Due to how they deal with boarding operations, along with their long time experience with handling cannonballs and powder all day, they where considered the best man for the job of tossing the ball across the pitch
Specialist characteristics: Average strength, somewhat slower speed then the rest and low agility, average AV, and can throw things gud.
Specialist limit: 2

Specialist (0-1):
Specialist icon:
Specialist name: First Mate
Specialist species/appearance: The First Mate is the one who looks the fanciest and is the most likely to try and show off and brag about it. They are wearing a coat one would expect to see a officer of some sort wear, and they just so happen to have a flintlock pistol, a loaded one.
Specialist characteristics: Average strength, armour value, and agility, lower speed. Should have frenzy.
Specialist limit: 1


Big guy (0-1):
Big guy icon:
Big guy name: Boarder
Big guy species/appearance: Scared, large, and armed only with their fists and a hook, the Boarder is the man who has their fists deal with anything close, and their hook to bring anything not close to them so they can use their fists to deal with them. Naturally, a man like this would be very useful for the team.
Big guy characteristics: Stronk and unlikely to go down with legs going at the blisteringly fast speed of a racing snail. They are the Wall.

[Failbird105]

Well, the sheet does have some errors, such as the crewmen characteristics say they have standard AND below average movement, but it's otherwise fine, as long as you know that both your big guy and first mate will likely only be allowed to play for one drive per game.

[piratejoe]

Yeah, I know they are probably getting secret weapon stats, which I'm fine with. As for below average movement, I meant below average armour, fixed it though.

[Supernerd]

Rough draft of the Insectoid team is up! Take a look, and let me know your criticism!

[Shadowclaw777]

Only criticism is that the Rhino Beetle has no access to general skills or strength skills, he seems like he should get access since it's both a slightly expensive big guy and has a negative perk, of docile . Also, I was kinda thinking that the Scout Moths would serve a Skink role, they have 8 MA and super-bashers in terms of the Saurians; and the Lizardman seem pretty balanced. Just that 6 MA seems a bit too low in terms in mobility, compared to skinks, maybe -1 AV for +1 MA, maybe +2?. Anyways everything seems fine

@Cryptfiend Maybe you could rate the race's competitive viability? ; the only thing I remember from Blood Bowl is to to start with four rerolls

[Supernerd]

The lack of skillsets posted for the Rhino Beetle was an error. No player can have zero skillset access.

[Criptfeind]

Well... I don't actually have that much experience in blood bowl, my experience (at least in pvp) is limited to playing 4 seasons of the bay12 league back when that was a thing, but that really wasn't enough to get a deep taste for the intricacies of the games. So take my comments on your dudes with at least a bit of salt.

I spent a bit trying to collect my thoughts on the demons, but sorta failing to do so. The demons seem "weak" to me. But it's hard to articulate why. Their linemen are fine if maybe slightly under par, the succubus seem fine but maybe slightly weak, the warlocks strike me as weak but I have no idea how strong they could be with the ability to cast spells and stuff, the Goliath is a perfectly fine big guy.

Right now I think the demons and gnomes are probably weaker then the golems, the golems had a huge gaping hole in ball handling ability, but then they got a really good positional for that, so now they are probably really good, but it's hard for me to visualize how bad having 3 mov on most of your team is. It could potentially be a pretty fair balancing point for the golems. Balance is certainly going to be interesting, especially since there's such huge starting access to otherwise niche skills and both the golems and demons sorta... Sorta described their linemen in ways that normally would have been a positional, Or for a more specialized team.

Onto the insects though, since I was asked I shan't turn down my chance to soliloquy! The insects are weird! But sorta cool. The linemen are... Interesting. Wrestle isn't block, but it's pretty close. It's a cool starting skill and maybe means you don't need to get block on them. Nerves of steel is weird on an agility 2 guy but I guess that their racial flavor. I think they are quite fine linemen. Scout moths are... Super annoying to play against I'm sure. Leap is actually pretty good You gota crush the moths otherwise they'll score all over you. You're right they seem slow for the "running" positional, but when you consider everyone on the team has nerves of steel, you should be able to do some good ball play, and Leap+Venom Shot is going to make some pretty disgusting line breaking moves possible, so... Balancing is hard, not sure. Skorpions seem like pretty solid players ball handlers and positionals. Venom Shot is a pretty good skill that might make the team. A quick pass is like, 3 squares if I recall? Which is enough to shoot into a cage if the ball handler isn't able to move away from the skorpion on the enemy turn. It's going to be very accurate (I think 3+ base, 2+ if you get accurate on them?). I think the insects are going to be very scary as passing players. Heavily bashing team like the golems might be able to grind them out into a 2-1 if they just absolutely dominate the field, but I think most other teams are going to really struggle to deal with both their passing play and their venom shot. Rhino Beetle is a cool big guy, although his negative perk starts out as worse then most big guys, you sorta pray for doubles, if you get them you can make him into a great blitzer which negates his negative perk with piling on, if you don't he can make a pretty okay wall, or just go piling on anyway.... Idk, it's not totally obvious to me how to use him, he is slightly slow. But I sorta think he's cool.

I think right now I'd rate the teams as something like.

Golems are strongest with a scary front line but might have issues actually moving around... But the horses will help with that.
Insects have a scary passing game and the venom shot is going to be great for all manner of shenanigans, so I think they'd be second strongest.
Demons and gnomes are somewhere around 3rd in that I don't think either has the most solid game plan. Demons are probably the better but you can't ever count out a stunty throwing team.

I hope you all take that with a grain of salt, and I'm interested in knowing your guys thoughts on the teams as well. Tbh, I'm finding it surprisingly fun to theory craft teams and strategies with these crazy ass teams.

[Supernerd]

I'll chirp in with a few comments. Venom shot is similar to the dark elf assassin stab move. It has the range effect, but is less likely to work since you also have to make a pass to make an armor roll just to get someone down. Not sure how effective it will be in practice. (Quick pass is three squares, but only two of the squares can be diagonal).

The demon team is designed to be difficult to out-bash because an injured lineman can just be sacrificed to the hellgate to get a new one. (Though this will make it hard to level them up).

The golem team looks good on paper, but with linemen that have loner and no block skill, double skulls will be a constant source of turnovers for them. There's not much worse than getting a turnover with your first or second block.

[Kashyyk]

Yup, and with only having 3MP and no agility to speak of they can easily get outmanoeuvred, especially if knocked prone.

[Shadowclaw777]

The thing is that a Skorpion is a much more effective version of an assassin from the dark elves, I believe? I remember people saying that the unit was pretty bad, but comparatively the assassin has 4 agility and "shadowing"; while the scorpion has both Prehensile Tail and Nerves of Steel. But has the possibility of attacking at range, but has to first succeed on the quick-pass roll which is base on the creature's 3 Agility.

Comparing to each other members, no lineman have a 3/3 star distribution which is also an interesting choice, means that each team won't just have a boring high-stat lineman, however when we start to compare our lineman to any unit in general to the one from the elves, especially something like the dark elves, we start to see how a 3 STR/2 AGI compared to a 3 STR/4 AGI feels like cheating. Also it's kinda hilarious that every single member of the insects can function as a catcher and passer just because of Nerves of Steel, but having 2 AGI lineman also isn't really that great as well. Also comparing the Golem Workers to like "elite" units like the Black Orcs and Saurons who have 4 STR, you can see that the only difference is that the Workers have the same stat distribution to the Saurons, but don't have 3 MA or have to suffer from loner. What this makes me think is that units that have better than 5 Stats compared to 5 Stat units with innate abilities, 6+ stat units are just better, usually have increased price tags as a compromise; but as long as you can fill 11 dudes and as min 2 rerolls, as possible, everything's fine

The only thing I was really hoping that my Rhino Beetle would start with the classic "ram ability" as in its name sake. Something like the Goliath ability of Charge, hmm noobie question how OP does this ability sound? I'm not a veteran Blood Bowl player, so this has some difficulty in assessing, but I believe this ability can be really powerful; however remember Docile also interferes with Blocking, which makes this ability less useful.

"Ram: When this target successfully performs a Pushback during a Blitz against another player, instead of moving a single tile, the player has to move two tiles instead."

It seems like this ability would have to reduce the Rhino Beetle mobility by 1, remove guard, or maybe I can just increase the base cost of the big guy

Edit: Made Ram only work on a Blitz, seems thematic because the beetle is charging up to you and than slamming its head. It doesn't seem too powerful because you have to use a blitz and also make sure that Docile doesn't proc

[Criptfeind]

Yeah, I basically agree with everything you said, that the skorpion is a more effective assassin unit, the ability to use it's power without blitzing is a pretty big deal I think. However the insects as a whole might be worse then the dark elves because their other units are significantly worse.

And yeah, your team does suffer from the fact that it probably doesn't reallly wanta bash that much, but doesn't have the agility to decline getting bashed. Unlike elves that can disengage their whole team at the end of their turn, your linemen are going to be stuck taking punches. Wrestle will help them... But it's not as good as 4 agility I think.

As for stats vs skills... I agree for the most part stats are better, at least strength (on anyone) and agility (on people that have 3 agility already) and a lot of players from insects, demons, and even gnomes suffer from loosing stats for skills whereas the golems benefit... It's not always straight up, block is almost as good and sometimes better then strength. Although after a single level the guy with more strength will normally then have block and the guy with block gets a secondary skill, which makes him a lot worse comparatively (because strength is almost always better then a secondary skill). Not to mention very few people in this game actually start with the basic block or dodge skill. So points kinda moot if people are giving up stat points for secondary or in some cases even tertiary or even some theoretical quaternary skill set.

That said I didn't want to call the golems over powered right away (although they cooould be) because 3 mov is... That's not very much. It's just enough to stand up from prone, but otherwise I can say from fighting black orcs that when a team has such low mov it's possible to juke them back and forth across the field until their formation falls apart and you can break though. But it's hard to do so and high strength teams are easy to play as and hard to play against. So... I'd sorta expect the golems to dominate at first. Not to mention all the teams printed thus far have relatively low mobility, so it's going to be hard for anyone to take advantage of the golems sorta singular weakness.

As for Ram, I'm not sure if it'd be op, but it would make it very very easy to surf someone off the field if the unit got frenzy. Consider Ram+Frenzy+Juggernaut, you'd be able to push people from the middle zone all the way off the field! Although it would be a lot more fair on a unit that doesn't have general access like the Rhino.

[Kashyyk]

I'm trying to decide how much I agree with you on the Golems. They'll definitely do well in the brawl, but once they get there they'll be stuck until they can fight their way out as the choice on whether that brawl continues will be up to the other team. Similarly, if you can get past their main line they'll only be able to throw their more squishy players at you as the bashy  simply will not be able to keep up.

[Criptfeind]

Yeah, those concerns (well, sorta, right now without any high agility team declining the fight isn't easy) are why I'm not saying that they are overly strong, just that they could be. I'd expect in a fairly competitive environment that exploiting the movement weakness is going to be the go too strat for fighting them. I'm just saying that it'll take some level of skill to properly exploit that weakness (on the other hand it's going to be very hard to position them as well from your side.) I know that I'm personally not the best blood bowl player in the world and I think I might need a few games against them to get the feel for it, I dunno how confident the rest of you are in your abilities... On the other hand we're going to be playing in an untimed environment, which will be... Interesting.

It's not a big concern to me either way tbh. Blood bowl is at it's core an unbalanced game, so even if the golems are overtuned or weak at first (or the demons or insects or even the gnomes) that's all within the spirit of the game and is frankly inevitable. I'm sure once we finish the first set of games we'll have a better handle on balance and can maybe make some adjustments for the 2057 season.

[Emral282]

This seems interesting, although my only experience with blood bowl is messing around against the AI on a friends copy of Blood Bowl 2.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Team Designation: Youkai Alliance
Species Description: A grouping of monsters from the far east who have teamed up to play Blood Bowl.
Extraordinary Abilities: N/A? Can't really think of anything.
Apothecary Type: Standard

Lineman (0-16):
Lineman icon:
Lineman name: Bakeneko
Lineman species/appearance: Humans with cat ears and a pair of cat tails.
Lineman characteristics: Average linemen, if on the dodgy side.

Specialist (0-4):
Specialist icon:
Specialist name: Oni
Specialist species/appearance: Muscular and horned humanoids with red skin.
Specialist characteristics: Strong blitzers who can both give and take a hit.
Specialist limit: 4

Specialist (0-2):
Specialist icon:
Specialist name: Tengu
Specialist species/appearance: Humanoids with the head and wings of a crow
Specialist characteristics: Fast and dodgy runners who are capable of handling the ball but will go down like a sack of wet potatoes if someone manages to get a good hit on them.
Specialist limit: 2

Specialist (0-2):
Specialist icon:
Specialist name: Kitsune
Specialist species/appearance: Humans possessing the ears of a fox as well as multiple tails.
Specialist characteristics: Tricky players who are skilled at area denial and tying down enemy players.
Specialist limit: 2

Big guy (0-1):
Big guy icon:
Big guy name: Okami
Big guy species/appearance: A large white wolf.
Big guy characteristics: A savage wolf capable of tearing through armor. They cannot handle the ball on account of not having hands and tend to act on instinct.

edit: bumped up the oni's numbers.
edit2: added poorly edited icons.
edit3: toned down the hypnotic gaze bait in the kitsune's description.
edit4: edited the kitsune's description some more.

[Tyrant Leviathan]

Hmmmm. Thinking of three teams.


Magical Girls, Scary Mutants, or Aliens.