dwarves dwarfed in perpetual formats?

[poochée]

hi there,

a new coach asked me for advice on what team to bring to our league. He asked for a easy to learn team that he could keep on playing for a few seasons. I recommended him to take dwarves (we have two orc-teams already and I always thought that dwarves were one of the beginner-friendliest teams out there). Now apparently he talked to one of our other coaches who told him that dwarves are actually a rubbish team to play in a perpetual format or even for a longer period of time (thanks to the changes to the lrb).
Understandably the new coach is now a bit confused.

I am confused myself actually. Not being big on regular dwarves myself (I prefer chaos dwarves myself) I have never actually thought too hard about how they perform in this kind of format.

So can anybody clear things up for me? Are dwarves really that nerved by the new ruleset?

I really don't want to stir up any harsh debates, I am just honestly puzzled. Especially because I used to play against dwarves a lot when I started out playing blood bowl and I have bad memories of my team ground into dust by those beards.

And yes, Heff, I know that you dislike dwarves. I really do.

[swilhelm73]

Dwarves are weak at high TV and strong at low TV - so in a perpetual league they are weak.

Of course they are still a tier 1 team and can compete it will just be harder.

I'd probably suggest Undead instead - they are a bit more balanced, though still stronger at low TV.

[RogueThirteen]

Are Dwarves only weak at high TV because of Clawpomb possibilities?

[DoubleSkulls]

Are Dwarves only weak at high TV because of Clawpomb possibilities?

Yes and no. CLPOMB really hurts dwarves since their linemen are so slow to skill up, rebuilding the team takes ages. It also means they lose games because of attrition.

However Dwarves have often struggled anyway because the are very slow and its difficult to recover from any mistakes or silly moves.

[nick_nameless]

I don't consider Dwarves to be a great beginner team. Scoring with dwarves takes patience and skill. They only "beginner" things about them is that they don't tend to suffer attrition as much as other teams and have block spam.

Undead would be a better choice. Or any elf team. Dark elves particularly if it is perpetual.

[Ullis]

Undead don't scale up too well either.

Anyway, if your friend is just starting out, I think the best suggestion is to play some games first and perhaps then start anew if your league allows it.

Regarding dwarves, I think they only struggle when playing in a league where you can play lots and lots of matches. Most tabletop leagues aren't like this. But I wouldn't recommend dwarves to new players either as the low movement makes positioning so important both on offence and defence.

[Smurf]

PM Heff, he knows a lot about Dwarves most likely 'our go to guy' on the Forum about Dwarves

How perpetual is the league? Is 50 to 100 games enough or on until the proverbial end of time?

[pauli42]

Dwarfs are fine to start with, but it limits the new player to one playstyle. I think humans are much better for beginners, strong blitzers, good basic catchers and throwers etc. You can tryout every aspect of blood bowl like blocking, dodging, running and passing (short and long) and howto handle a big guy. After a season or two you should know which playstyle you prefere and then take a team.

[garion]

I really don't understand any of these posts one bit to be honest?

Dwarves are one of the best starter races in the game. They are also one of the best mid - long length teams in the game and guess what... they are one of the best races in the game in perpetual leagues.

They are also one of best teams in the game at playing as huge TV underdogs, they also have brilliant star players.

The only time Dwarves suffer is in TV based match making environements; where every game they play is against CPOMB opponents.

Dwarves are awesome.

P.S. their cheerleader is also hot

[burgun824]

Does anyone else now want to watch garion vs. Heff in a Pit Fight?

[Chris]

Dwarves are a solid team, but you need a conservative play style married with risk taking at the right time. The 5 players with tackle are always useful and indeed their linemen are key to the basic competiveness. I would say appart from the risk of a fatal game that everyone has - and they have less of thanks to high armour - the biggest problem is hitting a developed claw team (my record is losing 9 players to death and stat reducing/niggling injuries in one game if you include the stars). They will be faster than you, hit harder and handle the ball better. Strategies I have used to survive (online in the Cynide auld league) generally center around taking mercenaries to try and absorb the casualties, as well as star players to do all the risky work (I like Zara). I am considering taking a developed team and buying a death roller and enough linemen to get to 16 players and a high TV to try and catapult past the claw teams.
What sort of leagues do you have? Is it possible to avoid the death teams?

[garion]

no you dont avoid them, you out bash them. In a one off game dwarves can hurt Chaos just as well as Chaos can hurt Dwarves, arguably even more so. Dwarves only stuggle if they face CPOMB every game for 10 games like they do in black box and MM.

CPOMB vs av9 + Thick skull is pretty much the same as MBPO vs Av8, then dwarves have the advantage of being one of the only teams that can actually make good use of the crappy skill Fend and they can also spam Guard better than Chaos or nurgle and they also start with Block on every player which lowers the chances of being knocked over massively, while chaos teams will likely have many players that still dont even have Block yet.

Dwarves can eat chaos in one off games because of the one dimensional way chaos build teams now. But like so many games in this stupid edition of the rules winning the Kick off is massively important. If the CPOMB team receives first, the Dwarves could be in serious trouble, if the Dwarves win the toss, they can out bash the Chaos.

Star players that are good are Bomber and Chainsaw dwarf (Flint Churnblade I think, he is called?), you dont need the others they are mostly a waste of space, foul every turn with your chainsaw get a bribe too if possible and throwing bombs is just a great weapon, especially in an av9 team where you dont hurt your self when you blow up your own guys.

Im not the biggest fan of dwarves because they get boring after a while but they are an amazing top tier side at all TVs.

[poochée]

thank you for your opinions guys!

@garion: You pretty much echo what I always thought about dwarves. This kind of anchors my world view again a bit. Thanks!

I was always under the impression that dwarves were awesome, limited to one play style but very good at it. In our league (which now consists of 16 teams) we have one chaos and one pact team, they both are pretty new and piloted by coaches who don't tend to turn too competetive... so I would think dwarves would do fine.

Well anyways the new coach got swayed by the other guys advice and now doesn't want the dwarves anymore. Maybe he'll pilot undead, maybe nurgle (the other guy who gave hin the advice says that they are the absolute pinnacle of perpetual league teams)... *sigh*, I only meant well...

Hm, maybe I should start up a dwarf team myself and show them whether they suck or not

[Nikolai II]

maybe nurgle (the other guy who gave hin the advice says that they are the absolute pinnacle of perpetual league teams)... *sigh*, I only meant well...

Sounds like that other guy didn't mean well.

Nurgle might be a pinnacle team - 20-30 games down the line, until then I'd be more inclined to call it rookie hell :p

[neverworking]

dwarfs are forgiving on new players in some ways and aren't super demoralizing because they rarely suffer major attrition unless as stated previously the face off against a lot of claws. new players do tend to struggle with positioning and often like to pass or hand off more than they should and dwarfs neither forgive poor positioning nor do they allow for much reasonable ball maneuvering after the pick up. orcs are the best beginner team in my opinion because they are pretty forgiving on attrition and even allow for a little ball maneuvering even if its generally advisable to avoid passing still. humans are also easier for new players to understand, but they don't have over the long haul lag, and the new player is already at a disadvantage. as stated undead are another very good starting team, able to field most of their positionals out of the gate with decent rerolls, and regen can prevent mass attrition games that demoralize a new player.

chaos dwarf might be the better answer for your new player though. they have better upside because they have more speed to offset positioning mistakes, but still benefit from being able to open with multiple dwarf blockers. they aren't well suited for a lot of ball maneuvering but at least they do have access to ag3 players and fast players.