Talk Fantasy Football

Hi Again All!

Another team for review. :) This one is not listed on our league web pages as it's a new team that I painted (I need to dig out the camera and take some pics) after our season ended. I've only played with them twice in "ad hoc" test games, and they were so-so, but fun.

Background - I found a site that made some pretty neat looking Shaolin Monks and (as I always do) thought, "Hey! A new bloodbowl team!"

No armor or pads. Just your classic "guys in pajamas" in martial arts poses.

Anyway, here is our team design for them:

QTY Title Cost Stats Skills Skillups
0-16 Monk 50,000 6337 Side Step GA-SP
0-2 Dragon Warrior 90,000 7337 Block, Mighty Blow, Leap GA-SP
0-2 Lotus Eater 90,000 7337 Dauntless, Jump Up, Wrestle GA-SP
0-1 Master 80,000 6337 Stand Firm, Sure Hands, Pass GP-AS
Rerolls 50,000

Side Step was chosen to represent their ability to maneuver with their kung fu skills. In play it was not as powerful as one might have expected - useful, but not overly so. Dragon Warriors are blitzers, of a sort. one mini is kicking high and the other is throwing a flying kick. :) Lotus eaters are sort of berserkers, but I didn't want to make them like Ulfs or quite like Troll Slayers. The master is the group leader, and having someone who can get the ball is helpful.

They played 1 game vs Chaos - both teams at TV100, with no skills added or anything. They won 1-0, but generally got knocked around and down quite a bit.

Second game was against a skilled Cultist team (see previous post), so they got some inducements. I think they were down 300k or so. The monks got their clocks cleaned, though I think that much of it was my crappy dice.

Ok. Whatcha think? Since these guys haven't been in a league yet, I can likely still adjust the design if they're (in some way) over the top or something. Initial play doesn't seem to indicate that they're too powerful though.

I love the lotus eater, however I am sure that such a drug would make someone more placid than aggressive.

There is always the drunken master that was used to great effect in a few movies of the type. Maybe that would be a better positional?

Not sure about the rest. Immediately Block + MB makes me cringe a little, however you have played it. What did your opponents think?

Sidestep on linemen is pretty powerful but also very hard to balance.

I think tackle over mighty blow might be an option as it also recreates more of the sweeping kicks you see in plenty of films to trip people.

Hmm, first reaction is that the team is probably Tier 1, and probably not at the top of the table. It needs to be tested, of course, that much Side Step and Stand Firm may be too hard to deal with... I'm not 100% sure.

But I am sure of this- Side Step on all your linemen will make the game go much longer. If you use a 4 minute timer in your league, this team will make the actual game itself harder to carry out.

If I were developing the team, I would use Nerves of Steel as the theme skill, and put side step on the positionals. A 6 3 3 7 NoS lineman is overall a bad value for the team though. So 40k might be the way to go.

I seem to recall Mighty Blow was a skill that it was advised wasn't on starting players (BGs excepted obviously). I don't think Block + MB is a good combo for a starting player.

First, let me thank you all, once again for the feedback. :)

In both games that I played with them, I took all of the positionals and filled the rest of the roster out with line, and took 4 RR. Didn't bother with FF or such as it was a pick-up game where SPPs would not be kept, etc.

The dragon warriors were not terribly effective in either match. Despite block and MB, they rarely broke armor or did any real damage. The team scored 0 CAS in both games. Also, the dragon warriors almost *always* had to blitz to throw blocks, and it was not always the best use of a blitz move. I do, however, like the idea of replacing MB with tackle.

The NOS idea is interesting as well. I'm thinking that maybe the master should get that instead of stand firm. It would fit better and is more interesting in some ways.

With AV 7, at least starting, they definitely did not feel like a very powerful team. I will try the changes above though. I think that they make sense and retain or enhance the flavor.

Oh, and as I created these guys, I did keep in mind that it wouldn't be hard to field them as Amazons if push came to shove, or if I wanted to take them to some other league and just use the minis. Hm. Maybe I'll break out the camera tonight and take some pics...
:)

i do agree with the no MB + block on a starting player. with this + the leap, it is lot better than a human blitzer.
block + leap should be enough to compensate his 7 AV

concerning the master, i don't think pass is very fluffy, i would go for
6338 stand firm, leader

leader since he is the great monk master and every other monk listen to him.
rising his cost to 100k and rising the reroll cost to 60k, so the master would be an alternative to a lino + reroll

lerchey wrote: Anyway, here is our team design for them:

QTY Title Cost Stats Skills Skillups
0-16 Monk 50,000 6337 Side Step GA-SP
0-2 Dragon Warrior 90,000 7337 Block, Mighty Blow, Leap GA-SP
0-2 Lotus Eater 90,000 7337 Dauntless, Jump Up, Wrestle GA-SP
0-1 Master 80,000 6337 Stand Firm, Sure Hands, Pass GP-AS
Rerolls 50,000

Monks - I like, I don't think AV7 and Side Stepis too much and will be an interesting change, despite fears over timing

Dragon Warrior - Should probably go with Tiger Warrior to be different from High Elves or Mantis Warrior or even Monkey Warrior with skills of Leap, Jump Up and Block

Lotus Eater - I like

Master I like Stand Firm, Sure hands and NOS (i.e. lose Pass)

I would like this team without being too confident of a win.

SillySod wrote:Sidestep on linemen is pretty powerful but also very hard to balance.

+1. For balance's sake, I'd steer clear of any list that allowed more than 0-2 ST3 Side Step players, and those players should be expensive. Moreover, on such a team the non-Side-Steppers should either be AV7 or lack Agility skill access. Same with Stand Firm, though such guys could be slightly cheaper, or could be 0-4 if they're not a hot deal on paper (and access doesn't matter much if they're 0-2). Not quite the same with Fend, but the difference is a matter of degree: 0-4 fair-quality positionals @ 70k plus with Fend would be ok. But generally, teams should have to build for positioning skills.

Echo above concerns about Mighty Blow. One game isn't a good sample: build that team half a dozen times over 6 or 8 games, and you'll see how fast they can grow out of control.

I think I'm liking the idea of losing pass on the Master. I'll re-write them to test with Leader, NoS, and Sure Hands.

Changing the Dragon Warrior to Mantis Warrior (more because I like the name better - LRB5 and LBR5+ don't have any "warriors" of any kind - is that from a previous version? I started with LRB 5...). They'll now have Block, Tackle, and Leap. I agree that MB was a bit much (though tested in TWO games, not one! LOL).

I'm leaving the Monks and Lotus Eaters as is for now. When I get a chance to test them some more I'll see if the SS is too much.

Thanks again!

Hi Folks,

I tested the new(er) layout for the Monk team last night playing against my son's chaos team. Both teams were at 1,000,000 having not been used before (at least in the current incantation).

Monk Team after the forum feedback was as follows:

QTY Title Cost Stats Skills Skillups
0-16 Monk 50,000 6337 Side Step GA-SP
0-2 Dragon Warrior 90,000 7337 Block, Tackle, Leap GA-SP
0-2 Lotus Eater 90,000 7337 Dauntless, Jump Up, Wrestle GA-SP
0-1 Master 80,000 6337 Nerves of Steel, Sure Hands, Leader GP-AS
Rerolls 50,000

I bought all of the positionals, 3 RRs (leader provides one, and I typically take 4), and 7 Monks (line).

The Chaos team had 2 Chaos Warriors, 4 RR and a pile of beastmen for an 11 player team.

The Chaos team received first. On his turn 2 I was staring a board with a beastman carrying the ball across the LoS with only TWO of my players standing, and of those down, 3 were stunned. The monks rallied, however, and by turn 4 had mostly stopped the chaos teams progress, but were not making much headway otherwise.

The beastman ball carrier, a second beastman, and a chaos warrior were about 7 spaces from the end zone. There was a monk behind them (tackle zone on the CW), Master Po in front of them, to the inside of the field with a TZ on a beastman, and a Mantis Warrior in front of the ball carrier (TZ on him).

The beastman knocked down Master Po (didn't break armor), but didn't follow up. The CW knocked down the monk to the rear and then the ball carrier made a break for it. He dodged out and then ran off towards the center of the pitch, gaining 2 spaces towards the end zone in the process. Master Po, free of TZs got up and moved towards the carrier, but was too far away to put any TZs on him. A monk from near the LoS dodged out and had to GFI once, but did put a TZ on the ball carrier. Next came the key to the play. My Mantis Warrior leaped clear of the scrum, and blitzed the ball carrier. Took him down (both down) and the ball bounced to the Monk that had GFI'd. Confucius say, "A player with ball, and no movement is the target of the beast". The beastmen blitzed my ball carrier, killed him (Pow! 11 for the armor roll, 10 for injury, 67 for casualty!) and knocked the ball loose. Attempting to dodge a beastman away to get the ball (the blitzer was out of movement), a 1 was rolled and down the beastman went.

Master Po recovered the ball, did a pass to a Monk. The Monk caught it, ran through the LoS to a Lotus Eater, handed off the ball, and the LE ran it in for the first TD.

Throughout the game, the Monks almost never had even half the players standing at the end of any Chaos turn. Oddly, the Chaos player rarely broke armor (even on an all AV 7 team!), and when he did, he typically stunned the players. He did manage to kill one (as shown above). One of the Monks suffered a serious injury after breaking his own armor on a failed dodge attempt.

Sidestep was useful on rare occasions when a Monk had the ball and was pushed into a better position, but mostly just helped me to block lanes with prone monks as they got batted around.

Wrestle came into play once during the entire game. I needed to take down a beastman to buy some space for a ball carrier and did a 1 die block. Both down let me take down the target without a turn over. Very nice. But again, only came into play once.

Leap was used a good bit, but I failed at well over half of the landing rolls though armor was rarely broken.

The team periodically hit pretty good, but that was Nuffle being nice.

End result was a 3-0 win, with a 3-1 edge in CAS, though only one beastman suffered anything serious - broken neck with -1 AV.

In the end, I really disliked starting the master with Leader. It just felt like a cheap RR that had allowed me to forgo the purchase of one and buy a 12th player. I've decided to swap it out for Fend in the final roster. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with the team. SS wasn't a critical factor in the game, and with AV 7 across the board, no block ('cept for the Mantis Warriors) and no dodge, the team really spent the majority of it's time on the floor. I only won because of 2 factors:

1) I am a better coach than my 13 year old son, who has only played a few games. I did a lot of suggesting during the game, but never bullied him into any decision. He made some pretty lame ones all on his own and would not be talked out of it. :) On turn, near the end of the game, I had a MW in the endzone who failed a catch, leaving the ball just inside of the EZ. A beastman ran down, picked it up (in a TZ), and had three throwing options. Long pass to a CW, Long pass to a CW in a TZ, or a long bomb 2 spaces out of range of a beastman "target". He opted for the long bomb and almost guaranteed turnover, in hopes of getting the ball near the beastman who was way down field. He fumbled. I took out his beastman, moved another player down, picked up the ball and scored my 3rd TD.

2) My son's dice were even worse than mine. He must have managed near 100 knock downs over 16 turns. Seriously. He managed 1 CAS.

After replacing Leader with Fend, and buying a replacement player with the winnings from the game, the team looks like this:

Shaolin Dragons
Master 6 3 3 7 NoS, Sure Hands, Fend - 2 Completions
Mantis Warrior 7 3 3 7 Block, Tackle, Leap - 1 TD
Mantis Warrior 7 3 3 7 Block, Tackle, Leap - 1 CAS
Lotus Eater 7 3 3 7 Dauntless, Jump Up, Wrestle - 1 TD
Lotus Eater 7 3 3 7 Dauntless, Jump UP, Wrestle - 1 TD, 1 CAS
5 Monks 6 3 3 7 - Side Step - 0 SPP
1 Monk 6 3 3 7 - DEAD
1 Monk 6 3 3 7 - MVP
4 RR
FF 1
10,000 treasury.

They were fun to play, but they're going to have problems against bashy teams, and against higher MA/AG teams.

Once again, I appreciate eveyones comments and assistance in rounding out the team. Lots of great suggestions and I think I have a fun, but not overly effective team for it. :)

a lack of Mighty Blow in this situation shows why Chaos are pretty bad early on in leagues.

voyagers_uk wrote:a lack of Mighty Blow in this situation shows why Chaos are pretty bad early on in leagues.

I would agree; if your son had MB on anyone I think it would have destroyed your team.

If you know how to use mass ST3 Side Step right, you'll beat everyone, every time, man. It's all in the coaching. Also, this team will develop into a bunch of hellions when they start skilling: a Monk with 2 improvements is like an Amazon lino (best value in the game) with, only better (as SS is better than a 2nd G skill) and on a team with MA7 players. Run a 15-game season with 4 of these teams and 4-8 other teams, and you'll have a credible sample to start making inferences from. You'll see what I mean by the end: at least one coach will simply spank every single opponent with all those positioning skills.

60k Linos and TRRs would be a good place to start... or 60k G-only linos and 50k TRRs. That's a nice premium over an Amazon, in exchange for superior positionals.