Talk Fantasy Football

I'm thinking about busting out my "Warpstone Weasels" at an upcoming tourney in a few months, and I've been bouncing around some possible rosters.

I've decided to go with skaven for several reasons. For one, they are one of my better painted teams. Also the rules of the tourney seem to favor them somewhat. Your whole team roster is reset after every match (no permanent deaths/si etc), and they will even get guaranteed doubles rolls every few matches (can you say mutations?!) Games 1, 3, and 5 get doubles rolls, games 2 and 4 you get normal skills. Can't give multiple advances to the same player.

You can have stars but I don't want them.

This is the one I keep coming back to though:

2 Throwers 140k
2 Storm Vermin 180k
4 Gutter Runners 320k
3 LineRats 150k
3 RR 180k
3 FF 30k

That's a sweet 100tr roster. The GR's are flying all over the place, I won't have to put some back to get the ball. Scoring won't be a problem. Defense might be a little tough but in tr 100 games you get a few more opportunities generally, because the opponent will make mistakes. I'll at least have the speed to capitalize on those.

I don't need an apoth, nobody dies, and I expect to be moderately outnumbered in most games anyway.

I figure after the first game, I give a thrower Big Hand. Then after that I'll give a GR Block. Then a Storm Vermin w/Claw. For the 4th and 5th I'll probably make my decision based on my experiences up to that point. If it seems there are a lot of dodgy teams, I'll take guys with tackle and tentacles or something. If lots of hitty teams, maybe guard on a SV or something.

Ideas regarding the roster or the skills?

Rat Ogre...he gives u the sidelines which let gutter runners go where they want.

Considering the rules of your tourney, Skavens just have a huge advantage against many teams, since they're cheap, fragile and incredibly fast. Considering all that, I'd keep your roster the way it actually is. Yes a rat ogre would give the GRs a little more space, but it's not worthy enough to give up two re-rolls or most of your position players, you just CAN'T afford that.

I'd definitely stick up with that team.

rat ogre with claw is a beautiful thing...

I agree, but it's also taking a big chance, at an unaffordable price. In this context at least.

I don't think so,

I played skaven at the last tourney I went to, and with the rat ogre, 3 skaven teams were tied with an ogre team for most cas going into the final game.

I took claw on my rat ogre after game 3 and had it for the last two games....he single handley knocked 5 elves off the pitch in one game with claw being a factor on 4 of the blocks. The 2nd game he knocked 3 elves off the pitch with claw being a factor on 2 blocks. (HE's both games.)

Skaven teams with the rat ogre are just better suited to deal with strength teams your bound to see also.

If I did add the rat ogre, it would be at the expense of the storm vermin and one of the throwers. Then the rat ogre can't use rerolls, and I've taken away some of the skill rerolls of the team. Plus with only 1 thrower to cover the whole backfield, he'll be making longer passes which also increases chance of failure.

I certainly think the other roster is a much safer one.

I did convince myself of a better skill choice for the first non-doubles roll. I'm going to give a GR kick. Kicking the ball into the back corner against the basher teams will give me a major advantage on defense, and make it even MORE likely that I'll be able to capitalize on their mistakes.

A common roster is to drop a thrower and SV and get a reserve linerat. you will need him as your players go down during the match and skaven can crumble when they start to get outnumbered, it also allows you to keep a GR off the field on defence (when the extra ST is more useful than speed)

The other alternative is an apoth, simply to keep a positional player on the field. it can even be used with a KO or a stun in a critical situation. It is a bit of a trade off of flexibility and the risk it wont work.

kick is definitely needed on that team.

I think the Rat Ogre roster is:

1 thrower 70k
2 Storm Vermin 180k
2 Gutter runners 160k
Rat Ogre 130k
5 lineman 250k
3 RR 180k
3 FF

Your team is definitely faster and built to attack, but I think this one has more staying power. there is also option to get rid of one RR for apothecary. (50k to save a more expensive player on the pitch at a key time)

Emberbreeze wrote:A common roster is to drop a thrower and SV and get a reserve linerat. you will need him as your players go down during the match and skaven can crumble when they start to get outnumbered, it also allows you to keep a GR off the field on defence (when the extra ST is more useful than speed)

If I did add a linerat, I think it would be at the expense of a reroll, not the position players. But I trust my ability to play shorthanded a lot more than I trust my dice. I've played elf teams back when Blood Bowl really was violent, I'm used to playing with 6-7 elves or less for most of a game.

And I disagree about the ST being more useful than speed. For me, having 4 Ma9 AG4 guys is my defenses strength, not its weakness. You never have to worry about getting assists wherever you need them, and it will force my opponent to be VERY careful with the ball. One screw up and they know I'm scoring with it.

Emberbreeze wrote:The other alternative is an apoth, simply to keep a positional player on the field. it can even be used with a KO or a stun in a critical situation. It is a bit of a trade off of flexibility and the risk it wont work.

An intriguing possibility, but nah, not in a tourney where all your players reset after the game. Your 50k would be better spent on a rat you know would be there in MOST situations, or the reroll to maybe keep them from going down in the first place...

Still thinking about things though...good news is the tourney isn't for a few months yet.

remember you will be getting skills which effectivly make your players worth more than the starting cost.

At Pearlies this year I took an apoth for my vampire team even though only 40k thralls can use it. my reason being a thrall with a skill is worth more than 50k (to get kick, or sure hands back in play)

Hehehe I would have called you crazy too. The chances of the particular thrall with an important skill getting hurt are there, but are not worth 5% of your starting TR.

Here's a list with an RO that I'd consider:

1 R.O. 13
4 GR 32
2 Thr 14
2 SV 18
2 Line 10
2 RR 12
1 FF 1

That way I have my cake and eat it too...essentially I'm trading a linerat, a reroll, and 2 ff for a rat ogre.

There's a lot more risk in this potential roster, but also a lot more reward as well. Also it means I'll need to repaint my Rat Ogre Model, the one I have looks like crap.

I played a practice game with my TR 100 tourney rats using this roster:

2 Throwers 140k
2 Storm Vermin 180k
4 Gutter Runners 320k
3 LineRats 150k
3 RR 180k
3 FF 30k

I played against tr100 orcs that went like so:

1 Troll
4 Blitzers
2 Black Orcs
1 Thrower
3 Line Orcs
3 RR
2 FF

Started out great, scored in 3 turns and even got a cas on a line orc.
Then I failed a 2 die block, and failed again with the reroll, early in a turn playing defense, and he went wild on my team. I lost 3 rats that turn, 2 ko and 1 cas, and had 2 others stunned.

It was all downhill from there...he won 2-1. I ended the game with 4 rats on the field.

Now clearly, part of that was luck. He got very fortunate on those armor/inj rolls that turn, and he wouldn't have gotten most of those at all if I had not ended my turn in a very bad position early due to a very unlucky roll.

At the same time, though, my roster is definitely prone to turns like that. It's fragile, with 4 st2 guys and mostly av7. That's its major weakness without question. The idea is to mitigate this as much as possible with speed and agility. Having 4 Gutter Runners makes defense a very fluid thing, and any misstep by the other team is quickly turned into a rat score.

What I'm getting at is I'm wondering if I should break down and take that rat ogre after all. If I did, the roster would be more like this:

2 Throwers: 140K
4 Gutter Runners : 320K
2 Storm Vermin: 180K
1 Rat Ogre: 130K
2 Line Rats: 100K
2 RR
1 FF

The upside of this roster, obviously, is the big ST5 guy that gives me some serious beef on the line and helps hold things together a bit. It also gives opponents a nice decoy target to worry about while my GR's do a lot of the real damage.

The downsides, though, are that he can't use rerolls, and most often will be going early in the turn to set up holes for the little rats to run through. 2db's with no block and no rerolls make me extremely nervous. Plus, if I use him to blitz, and he fails, then I've wasted my blitz AND the rat ogre's turn.

On top of that, I lose a reroll (trust me I need them) and some FF.

Finally, weighing on me is a miniature issue. I have a rat ogre, but he's poorly painted, and at a friend's house. I'm doing an all-new skaven team for this, so I'd have to scramble to get him from my friend, strip him down, and paint him up in a month (along with the rest of the team of course, which is coming along)

So, if I can't make up my mind clearly that the Rat Ogre Roster is better, I will probably just do the other roster, just for the sake of simplicity.

So, once more, whaddya think guys? Roster A or Roster B?

A
2 Throwers 140k
2 Storm Vermin 180k
4 Gutter Runners 320k
3 LineRats 150k
3 RR 180k
3 FF 30k

B
2 Throwers: 140K
4 Gutter Runners : 320K
2 Storm Vermin: 180K
1 Rat Ogre: 130K
2 Line Rats: 100K
2 RR
1 FF

Roster B. You can always use a double to put Leader on a SV for that extra RR if you need to. I'd also use the double for Block on the Rat Ogre instead of claw.

Also change a thrower and a SV (160k) into 2 x linerats and an apoth. The thrower makes NO difference (use a GR for that) and the loss of a SV for the gain of a apoth is major.