Talk Fantasy Football

I've been toying with this idea for a while. Firstly let me state that I really hate the amazon roster because its got some horrible design flaws...
- linewomen that get a first skill are a cheaper version of their team positional, this really isnt right. No other team has a lineman which can be the equivalent (or even near equivalent) of a positional but at equal or cheaper cost, not even the horribly overpriced slann blitzer.
- mass dodge vs dwarfs issue, this is only a real issue in some formats (mostly open formats) but there it can be huge.
- its boring, not a flaw as such but worth mentioning that I find this team the single dullest to play both with and against.
- the fluff is a little lacking, obviously this has alot to do with GW not really coving amazons much in warhammer. Still, it wouldnt hurt to fluff things up a bit.
- The team does immensley well at low TR and then fades out at higher TR, Monotone statlines dont help this. Admittedly I'm not sure how much this flaw has carried over to LRB5.

Now I've thought carefully about what changes might make the roster work. The first change is a bit radical - I've switched all the general access to agility access. Now while you may throw you hands up in disgust do think about it carefully.... sidestep is actually a very powerful blocking skill, especially when a whole team has it. Diving tackle also has many merits. Now that I landed the main bombshell, heres the roster:

0-16 Linewomen 6 3 3 7 dodge A/GSP 50k
0-2 Eagle Warriors 7 3 3 7 dodge, surehands, hail mary pass AP/GS 80k
0-2 Alligator Warriors 7 3 3 7 dodge, wrestle GA/SP 80k
0-4 Jaguar Warriors 6 3 3 7 dodge, block AS/GP 90k

RR 60k

Advantages:
- team has surehands, meeting stripball wont be ridiculous
- getting a surehands/blodge player is impossible without a double (or multiple skills on the alligator warriors)
- team is somewhat different from the next, its not just more of the same
- team has enough basic skills that it still works
- eagle warriors, I'm quite proud of the thrower concept, both the extra speed and the hail mary pass make it an interesting piece tactically

The nicely named positionals help give the roster some character, perhaps it might encourage people to paint their positionals in a way that helps distinguish the models from each other. They also help distinguish it from the main continent teams, I was thinhking that renaming some of the Slann positionals in a similar way would be nice since they are also clearly distinct from traditional BB roles.

Disadvantages:

- an obvious one here is that the roster just became more vulnerable to dwarfs, not good
- my pricing of alligator warriors and jaguar warriors is probably slightly out
- the effects of mass agility on a normal team are largely unknown, I think (from some experience) this will work fine but its hard to be 100% sure

One way of ammending the dwarf problem could be giving every starting player wrestle rather than dodge and then they can dodge up using their agility access.

I await your thoughts/abuse/scorn

My thoughts:

Amazons are dull, agreed. I loved the Amazonian roster though, I thought that did all that was needed. Fend linos with GA access, MA7 on runners and catchers.

I'm not a fan of silly names, so would prefer Runner, Catcher etc on any player.

You haven't solved your stated problem - a linewoman with a double is still cheaper than a Blitzer (with the same stats).

Diving Tackle would be an interesting alternative. Might be worth testing. Side Step is too good en masse.

Thats true - pretty stupid thing for me to miss too

0-4 Jaguar Warriors 6 3 3 8 block, dodge AS/GP 100k

Would be a solution, they are meant to be blockers after all. Add to that a 10k price hike on the the Alligator warriors and I'm happy that the team and costs make sense, maybe worth making the Eagle Warriors slightly cheaper.

Sidestep is too good and too wierd en masse on a starting team but ok as a first or second skill (I have a darkelf team that selects sidestep as the first skill - its good but not insane). I think diving tackle would just lead to them being grinded from the pitch.

Do I think the Amazon team needs changing? No.
Do I like the idea of replacing Gen skills with Ag skills? Yep.

Cheers
Martin

This looks more interesting than the current roster and may be balanced.

It may be a bit odd to have players with general skills but no general access (blitzers with block and no G access). I think this is unprecedented territory...

...and the Eagle Warriors with sure hands.

For me one of the issues is that the 3 human teams (Norse, Amazons and Humans) are balanced how I'd expect. I'd expect Norse to be the bashiest - which they are now - and 'zons to be the fastest - with humans in between.

So I'd couple changing zons with changing humans. Amazons ought to be the ones with 8237 catchers - not humans.

The second point is the masses of dodge means the team is too good early on against many opponents, but not good enough against others.

Having a signature skill is nice. Fend has been tried - but I think Jump Up gives me more flavour in terms of "gymnastic" humans.

Linewomen 6337 50k Jump Up GA/SP
Catchers 8237 90k Catch, Dodge, Jump Up GA/SP
Throwers 6337 70k Sure Hands, Pass, Jump Up GAP/S
Blitzers 7337 90k Wrestle, Jump Up GAS/P
Rerolls 50k

That gives a fast team with universal Ag access - meaning its easy to develop into the fast passing team that they ought to be (IMO).

Humans would then get a 7337 catcher instead of their 8237 one, and probably at a 0-2.

ianwilliams wrote: Humans would then get a 7337 catcher instead of their 8237 one, and probably at a 0-2.

0-4 will not be overpowered! With MA7 there can never be any "one-turners" and 0-4 high elf catchers are not "imballanced".

You are certainly right that Amazons and Humans dont add up somehow.... currently the zon team is way bashier than the human one. Not sure that I like JU though.

A whole team of Jump-Up gives the team a potential "blocking with every player every turn" and with General Access, thats good when you think about it!

With ONLY Agility Access it would make up for the Jump-Up skill.

The big danger here is that the team might die too fast, I think the blitzers could do with being armour 8 to help stop dodge becoming an instant necessity. On re-consideration I think that roster could also work very nicely, any chance of fitting the eagle warriors in?

I took Jump Up on many DEs in one of my teams in MBBL, and found that JU works great in what I was wanting to do, which was make an extremely mobile team, I did not take the time to make the whole team JU, which I think would definitely change how the team works as far as how people deal with it.

No you would not be able to block with everyone, rolling that AG test before hand fails a lot, just ask your Witches who have more AG than Amazons.

dont mind amazons as they are, however the blitzers and catchers should probably be at least MA7 and possibly AV8 on blitzers too increasing their cost to 100k. this would then also go someway to solving the linewomen becoming blitzers for cheaper

I used a homemade 6337+JU based team in a 6 game tournament once. (Representing Kislev, if anybody cares).
The team was by no means great, but lots of fun to play.
I went 3W, 1T, 2L - which for me is average/low-average.
So they didn't feel overpowered.

Only 1 guy complained about their power - but he just couldn't wrap his head around the JU.
When his black orcs pounded my players and missed, he'd follow up. Which makes sense.
But when he knocked them down he didn't follow up(!), because he was afraid of them jumping up and blocking back.... (why? I wondered).

With the 2+ now in place to JU, the team would have been even weaker.

I still think a JU team could be a good/doable idea.

Cheers
Martin

Can you use Jump Up from the Dead Box?