Talk Fantasy Football

Greetings!

Well I am back playing Bloodbowl once again it seems... And I have decided to go for good ol reliable smashing machines, the dwarves. Last time I played (over 8 years ago I think) they took many a casualty with them. Mind you, buying Star players was cheaper back then.

With the LRB 5.0 newly arrived, I have found many of the tactics to be outdated... Some by years. So, as I am once again new to this game (well at least this set of rules), can anyone help me out with a good dwarf entry list for a 100k league? I am going to use this team to help me learn all the rules again before I put out cash for either Kelts (my version of Norse but using Keltoi figures from Rackham) or Ogres.

Any other kinds of tactics you recommend would also help. I will look at more topics in here, but as 5.0 has been released, I am unsure if any are actually up to date or not.

Thanks for your help!

Fenriswulf

The casualty problem is non-existant nowadays for dwarves, unless you count runners into it. Also, a couple of new skills and rules that made it into LRB 5, mostly pertaining fouling and the skills Grab or Wrestle, dont hurt dwarves as much as others, due to your high AV, and easy access to Stand Firm (as the starting skills of a dwarf team are really good)

the 2 big questions are: Deathroller or not? And fouling or not? Especially the latter one is big, as it causes a lot more damage to the opponent team, but can also leave you with very few players in return, which with the dwarves inherent slowness can leave huge gaps in your defense.

Thus, I dont believe that dwarves can rival the top bashing teams in terms of sheer damage output anymore, without ruining their own game against fast teams. But they are pretty resilient, and I suggest trying to develop your trollslayers ASAP, they really ARE the cornerstone of your "tactical blocking" department with frenzy.

How about this starting list?

5 Longbeards (Blockers)
2 Runners
2 Blitzers
2 Troll Slayers

3 Fan Factor, 3 Re-rolls

Or perhaps 7 FF, 2 RR?

How useful is Fan Factor nowadays?

Fenriswulf

Go with the reroll rather than the FF, The effectivness of FF has been greatly reduced. It no longer guarantees extra cash and even when it does it's only 10k. After a few wins your FF will be 7 anyway, but that reroll will still cost double...

IMO, absolutely go with the re-roll.

The starting line-up mentioned is the one I have used for years. Because the positionals are so cheap, you can get them all and have no problem with 11 players and a decent # of RR. Troll Slayers are the key, runners also. Also, the combination of Tackle/block makes longbeards the ideal players for creating obstacles. Assume you will buy an apoth first game, and you will be hard pressed to lose more than the occasional player during the season.

Tactics from LRB4 to LRB5 have not changed that much. New and changed skills may have changed some tactics, but the basis is the exact same. BEAT THE HELL OUT OF THEM. I use the two runners together, maybe with some help from one of the blitzers. Either way, dwarfs are hard to lose with IMO.

FF is not very important in LRB5.
AC and CL's have an increased importance in LRB5.
The DR only last for one drive (unless you spend 100k on a bribe), so is next to useless. (tho it no longer blows up when knocked over)

give this, I would start with:

2xBlitzer
2xRunner
2xSlayers
5xBlockers
3xRR's
1xFF
1xCL
1xAC

Good idea's all I also like the idea of taking 1 AC and one CL when starting a team.

How about skills then? What do you consider the "must haves" for the positions for the dwarves?

Blockers: Stand Firm? Others?
Runners: Block? Strip ball? Sprint? Sure feet?
Slayers: Mighty Blow? Multiple Blow?
Blitzers: ??

Any idea what the best skills to get are if I roll doubles?

Any help is appreciated!

Fenriswulf

Blitzers: Mighty Blow, Guard, and Grab are all good choices. Don't be reluctant to change your plan if you get an agility 4 blitzer tho...sure hands and dodge would be nice on a player like that.

Runners: Kick-off return is almost a must have then Decide if you will pass the ball or not.
Passing dwarves need passing skills, pass, Accurate, Strong arm etc.
otherwise go with block, tackle, even pass block

Slayers: Mighty Blow, Guard, Stand Firm and Juggernaugt!

Blockers: Guard, Mighty blow. for a bit of 'fun' get pass block

Dwarves don't really need wrestle--no need to counter block on opposing players and you don't have the movement/agility to make a good cage breaker that can leap in and take down a ball carrier with wrestle

Blockers: Must have first Skill GUARD.
second skill is Grab or Mighty Blow.
A Line of scrimage with 4 guard/grab Blockers can smash the line quite efectively. Also you can build a hole in the oposing half you can exploit as to my experinece the most difficult part is to break with your cage through the opponents line. Usually I go through the sidelines where my Slayers clean the way. With Grab and Gurad to exploit its use you can part the enemy team like moses the Red Sea.

More than any other team, IMO, the dwarves benefit greatly in the switch from 3rd ed (which is what you were likely playing) to "modern" bb rules.

Why? 3 main reasons, lots of others. The 2 biggest ones are this: Star Players, Special Play Cards, and Wizards.

Star Players: in the day where everyone had 4 copies of a star player, dwarves were heavily out-strenghted by orcs, chaos, and humans, all of whom could do 4 morg n thorgs, or some similar nastiness. i still cringe when thinking back to the human team that had 2 morgs and 2 count luthors. nasty. the dwarves the had the deathroller, sure, but it was a specialized weapon, had a penalty roll, and in general just didn't stack up to Morg. Grim was nice too, but still not on par with the big boys.

Special Play Cards: Dwarves play a style where they don't plan to score a LOT, just enough, typically twice a game. So anything which can prevent a TD, which MANY of the special play cards did (burst ball, pit trap, etc etc etc) hurt them worse than other teams. It also meant that dwarves typically wanted to try to score in turn 7 if their opponent had a card, on the theory that perhaps they could still pull something off to score in turn 8, depending on the specific card in question.

Seriously, if I was playing Dwarves, and I got a pit trap and a burst ball as my 2 special play cards, i was more or less guaranteed a win. that's an indictment against the card/handicap system of 3rd ed if ever there was one, but as i said, the dwarves always took that the worst. My wood elves could often overcome that, dwarves not so much. Dwarves can now kick to opponent to start the game, let them score quickly, then grind down the field and score in turn 8. Then in the 2nd half, they slowly grind down the field and score in turn 8 again. Win 2-1. With no cards, there's no fear of off-field effects preventing that. As long as you grind right, you should be fine.

Wizards: Related to above. Wizards were TD stoppers. Every team had one except for undead, flings, and ... dwarves. they got more money they didn't need after every game instead.

The biggest downside I can think of for dwarves in this ed compared to 3rd edition is that frenzy has been weakened significantly, meaning your trollslayers are weaker too. you only get one extra block on frenzy, not your MA value. but lots of other skills have been weakened since then too, most notably diving tackle (i'm sure you'll hate that! ) so that's not as bad as it sounds.

Well do you know that we will go into the LRB 5!.

Edless Blocks with your slayers are a thing of the past.

And with the new inducement cards there is some flavour coming back.

Glorian Underhill wrote: And with the new inducement cards there is some flavour coming back.

It will be what you ate an hour or two ago so make sure it's something you liked.

Snew wrote: It will be what you ate an hour or two ago so make sure it's something you liked.

Grumpy old men....

Because it is new it doesn´t is good?
Just look at the pop-music. Every year something new and it it going better and better.

Oh well, on second thought: "Teachers, leave those rules alone!"

Glorian Underhill wrote:Because it is new it doesn´t is good?

No. I'm not like that at all. I'm more of an anti-establishment guy.

Snew wrote:
No. I'm not like that at all. I'm more of an anti-establishment guy.

Well that describes most Blood Bowl coaches everywhere on the world.

Show me a player and I will tell what his misfunctiuon is.

Anyway, Dwarfs still rocks. Especially since mass Star Players are a thing of the past.