Talk Fantasy Football

So... while I currently use WE mini's for my DE roster, and after seeing some of the other gems and zomg teams poster here already, I thought I'd ask for opinions about what an athel loren themed team which does more bashing and relies on a short game would look like.

Note 1; I actually want ideas here, not just validation of my own pet project.
Note 2; I realise I can find gameplay that I'm after in official teams already released such as DE and Slann, this is more a pipedream project to play with and see what some collaboration can bring.

So, my first thoughts as I'm typing.

In line with the WE fluff, I'm thinking fast and precision pain bringing.
Wardancers would have to be in, at least in name, even if they aren't exactly as on the current WE roster. Perhaps just have block and they can still be the blitzers?
Maybe some Claws on a dryad/branchwraith positional to soften up the high AV teams and allow for a very limited access to S skills. Maybe give em Dauntless, just coz Willow has it, though that may be too much anti-big-guy on a starting player, and claws with S access would make piling-on pretty much mandatory...
Some Wildkin or Wild Hunter positionals to provide explosion out of the box? The names are cool and I'm sure someone has an awesome idea for them.
Dryad or Elf linemen? I'd have fast dryads, MV7, since it stops the lino's being AG4 and forces the play making to the elf positionals. If the dryads were the lino's they'd not have S access though (precision pain, not bashy) the dryads could have low AG. Having dryad lino's would allow for higher AV on the line?
Probably skip the Treeman, mobile is what we're aiming for here. Maybe use Wild Hunters as Blitzers, maybe even copy/paste the DE Blitzers, and have the WD's be the big guy replacement? Though that brings us scary close to just redesigning the DE roster wtih less AG and more MV... That's not a bad thing though :]
Oh, no stupid passing skill access. Who needs it when you can hand off to AG4, amirite?
Probably 60k RR, those forest spirit types and those elves may fight together, but they don't necessarily LIKE each other.
Maybe some Glade Guard-esque blocker types... sorta defeats the mobile part of this, but who knows, someone may have an excellent idea for them!
Bring back the Unicorn as the big guy!
Steal the Sprites from the forest spirits team list? Though if you had a stunty you'd want the Tree back in to throw them...

Discussion, new inspiration we can go on wild trips of fancy with, wild trips of fancy based on my rambling, flames, etc below please!

Ok, no-one has any ideas to throw into the pot. I shall return to my evil lair and brew this team in secret until one day I unleash it upon you all!!!

Bwahahahah*urk*

Sorry, where was I?

Elves and Claws won't mix well.

How about a positional with just Dauntless and Leap? Or Wrestle and Leap if you want effectiveness.

So you're assuming an all elf team, as opposed to a team with some elf positionals?

Though I see your point about claw on an elf team, even those sneaky pact guys only get one elf on a team with M access.

Effectiveness is 2ndary to fluff at this point :]

The Wood Elves and their allies are deadly and unforgiving, capricious and cruel.
Against a common foe, elves and forest creatures fight as one, combining the skill of the eldar race with the elemental power and ferocity of the forest to unleash deadly and swift attacks upon their foe.
When this fearsome combination takes to the Blood Bowl pitch the result is a spectacle of blood and grace.
Designers notes:

Elves and dryads as lino's. They can stand on the los or provide the basic ball handling skills the team needs.
Wardancers are in, we'll keep them unchanged just for simplicity and wow factor.
With an elf positional, let's add a dryad positional. Bigger, stronger, more filled with hate than their smaller, less vicious, kin.
Now something fluffy... let's add Wildkin. Known as Alters or Shifters, elves able to adopt aspects of the creatures of Athel Loren. Frenzy would be the passe choice. These shifters are channelling the true soul of the forest, the Great Stag, they get Juggernaut.
To tree, or not to tree? No tree.
Cut and paste the star players from the existing Wood Elf list.

Since this is a fluff team, I'm aiming Tier 1.5 or 2.
Is the mobility and Leap too much at low TV? Is GAS access too much at high TV? Since Slann already have both, and arguably in greater quantities, so I'm thinking no.
Slower than regular Wood Elf or Skaven, and no Big Guy makes stronger debatable.
No passing skill access on normal skill rolls will hurt the development of a reliable passing game, though plenty of A access means Catch for handoffs is definitely on the cards.
Very one dimensional positionals, i.e. 3 blitzers types. The different starting skills and skill access should see them find specialties.
Low AV on all the AG4, and the rest only have regular AV. Speed may help, but the Dryads lack AG to dodge, and may end up being quite expensive, quite fast, zombies.

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Sample builds;
And the kitchen sink.
2 Wildkin, 2 Branchwraith, 2 Wardancers, 3 Dryads, 2 Linemen, 1 RR. 0 gp left over.
Will 1 RR be enough with; No ball handling skills, but AG4? No easy 2d block from a big guy, but with a way to neutralise big guys?

AG4 is cool yo!
2 Wildkin, 2 Wardancers, 7 Linemen, 1 RR. 10,000 gp left over.
Damn expensive elves! All AV7 and no apo.

AG4 is overrated, but I'll take a runner.
2 Wildkin, 2 Branchwraith, 7 Dryads, 2 RR, apo. 30,000 gp left over.
Skill up those Wildkin ASAP, and hope the apo will be able to save them, the only AV7 guys on the pitch... and also the only non AG2.

Ok, but I really want a Wardancer for christmas.
2 Wardancers, 2 Branchwraith, 7 dryads, 2 RR. 30,000 gp left over.
Incoming Wardancer SPP hogging.

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Ta da! I told you my evil lair would work out. Enjoy.

Edit: 60k RR, editted sample teams.

xzcion wrote: Since this is a fluff team, I'm aiming Tier 1.5 or 2.

Your team is MUCH stronger than the regular Wood Elf one IMHO.

WDs and linemen are still here, only Throwers and Catchers are missing.
Catchers can be repalced by Wildkins, who are MUCH superior to their High Elf and Elf counterparts, since they have Strength access: Block/Dodge/Guard then MightyBlow/Side Step... Only saving grace is that there are only two of them.
Lack of Throwers hampers the long range passing game, but cheap rerolls and enough AG4 allow to keep an excellent short pass/hand-off game.

The team has also two options that are unavailable to any other regular team with AG4: Cheap and sturdy linemen for the LOS (Dryads), and up to 4 players with Strength access, that is as many as in the Necromantic and Undead rosters.

Time to get rid of the WDs if you want to start having a somewhat balanced team.

agreed, I don't see any drawback in this team.

You can have 4 Mighty Blow very quickly (juggernaut buys you time to get block),
You can still leap-block into cage.
You can pass
You are fast
Even some AV8 and thick skull linos.

I think I would sign up for this team in any tournament.

PLus it would be awesome to mod from different minis.

Three dryads, 2 wardancers, 6 linos and 3 rrr's comes in at 990k. You have the perfect los with AV8 and Thick skull players and a fearsome offence and defence with the wardancers and line-elves. All backed up with 3 rr's.

For that roster I'd probably never touch the wildkin and branchwraiths. They're just too expensive and not worth the S access on normal rolls. The branchwraith pays 30k for S access and a marginal skill. Furthermore, they're hard to skill to get any mileage out of the S access. A killer branchwraith (Block and MB) needs 16 spp's which is a lot for an ag2 player with only 3 ST. The Wildkin doesn't really benefit from Juggernaut at all since it'd need Frenzy to really benefit from it. And before Frenzy it needs either Wrestle and Block. And as a platform for Side-step and Guard it's amazingly expensive.

The roster also solves the elven pain of manning the los with expensive and fragile linos.

My suggestion would be to drop one positional and perhaps rework the others. How about:

- drop wardancer altogether
- branchwraiths drop 10k in price to 80k
- rerolls to 60k

A couple of responses.

S access
Yes, they do have it. They don't have ST4 or a Big Guy to anchor the line like the teams you mention or even most teams. They also have no P access, unlike the other ST3 only teams. S access could be a problem, but I'm not convinced it will work out that way in a game.

Passing game
I don't think they can make long passes reliably and are not likely to develop/keep a player that can. Some people certainly will want the passing option. A single player with a high TV that is irreplacable from the bench will attract alot of attention on the pitch.

Short game
Yes, that is a design feature of the team. Quick passes, handoffs and running plays similar to DE's and Slann are what I'm looking for. More limited though, as there will not be a reliable passer developed 'just in case' as there are on DE teams (see above), and the lack of the amazing mobility of the Slann.

60k RR
Yes! I actually mentioned this in my opening post. Why I forgot about it I do not know. I blame it on a brain fart. I will change the team and the sample teams.

Mini's
Yes! This is why teams with a good fluffy theme are best, whether they're OP or tier 7. Have you seen Spubbba's wood elves, converted from daemonettes and dryads, on his fumbbl blog?

Dryads
I'm a bit worried making the Dryads AV7 or taking thick skull off would make them too cheap. I specifically did not want the dryads to be very cheap. They're already cheaper than the line elves, when ideally they would be the same price. While they have speed, their lack of AG and mobility skills (or A access to gain mobility skills) means in practice they will be very easy to lock down by marking them. Since the team has so few positionals (6 instead of most teams 8 to 10 plus a Big Guy), if you take many Dryads the team will be very easy to lock down into a bash game style, which I think this team would lose. Against other bash teams their high move can effectively be set to '1' though a good defense. It was specifically because I thought an AG3 Dryad would be even more OP with a better chance to use it's high MV that I reduced their AG and gave them Thick Skull to bump the price back up.

So, on to canvasing for suggestions!

Are there any suggestions from the gallery for ways to fiddle with the Dryads? (Ok, that may have come out wrong...)
Does anyone have a fluffy suggestion for Wardancers? They are the iconic wood elf unit, and having them missing would be sad.

Edit: Sorry Ullis, you posted while I was typing, but you raise similar points.

Athel Loren, v0.2 Release Notes
Dryads are more expensive, more fragile, and more agile.
Wardancers are cut. Searching for a new positional idea, increasing the limits on the existing positionals or redesigning the Wildkin and Branchwraith positions.

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Alternate take on Wardancers
The 3 positionals are not different enough. If Wardancers win the choice for "blitzer" why take the other two?
Branchwraith are meaner, stronger, older Dryads. Grab, Stand Firm or Side Step as a starting skill choice creates a 'blocker' positional and is enhanced by their higher AV.
Wildkin are feral elves who adopt animalistic traits. Mighty Blow, Piling On or Frenzy (*shudder*, it's only on 8/24 starting rosters) as a starting skill choice create a 'killer' positional. Tackle creates a 'safety' positional. Jump Up creates a 'scorer' positional.

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Thoughts on Dryad change?
Thoughts on replacement for Wardancers or on increasing Wildkin and/or Branchwraith limits?
Thoughts on appropriate skill selections for Wildkin and Branchwraith?

If your goal is to design a tier 2 team, you are clearly doing it the wrong way. Right now, I still see a team with unlimited access to AG4 and 4 players with Strength access, with no glaring drawback (No ST2 for instance). This is already an exceptional situation.

For balancing purposes, you should start from the Skaven team, which is relatively close to what you want (some AG4 and some strength access), and work from this. The Skaven roster has obvious weaknesses (ST2 on GRs, AV7 on most players, weak linemen) but still does great. You should aim at something similar.

I am not sure your design goals can be fulfilled to be honest. The reason why no elf team has Strength access is that it would make it too good.

Kort:
I came to a similar conclusion years ago. AG4 is a game breaker :] The idea is to make a team that's fluffy for wood elves, not for skaven. The masses of very fast gutter runners and wood elf catchers is something I'm actively avoiding with only 2 of any positional.

Unfortunately I really like the fluff of having 2 different linemen. It may indeed be that for this idea to work the Linemen need to go as well, just leave the Dryads behind without having to worry about them being cheap compared to elves. If you have any ideas, please post them so we can see what you're thinking of.

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Redid what was here before.

Athel Loren v0.3 Does overpricing the Dryad and Wardancer like this make taking the other 2 positionals more appealing?
I think this team is starting to look alot less OP, though it is probably still Tier 1 with the Thick Skull on the Dryads making them harder to remove from the pitch than AV7 would suggest.

Right direction? Wrong direction?

How about your v 0.2 with a treeman for your third positional place. If the branchwraiths have AG2, then S access is a lot less problematic as skilling them and positioning them is a struggle. Despite your objections I'd give the Wildkin Frenzy as a starting skill. It works as a starting skill and actually hinders them somewhat. If not Frenzy, then perhaps just Leap. That's not too good as a sole starting skill. Or then nothing at all. They have an excellent stat line and access to lots of skills. Not every player needs a skill to flesh it out.

I think the dryads work better at 70k. I don't think the 10k price hike is worth the increased AG as the team already has lots of AG4 for dodging and ball handling. This makes it easier to skill them but it's hard to give them skills that the team would benefit from. Although it might actually make sense to skip them entirely and just use line-elfs.

It's too warhammer. JJ point was that the 3rd ed was too close to warhammer and it has moved slightly away and bringing back a warhammer army list is just not in with the them of the 6th ed.

Ullis: Given how people walk a black orc over the line for spp, I think a fast ag2 player would not be too much of a problem to skill up if you decided to do that. Dropping the starting skills is definitely something to consider. The treeman is definitely an option, though I would prefer to create a blocker positional in the branchwraiths so that the 'strength' in the team is in it's S access as opposed to ST6 on the pitch. Thoughts?

Smurf: Who cares if it's 'too warhammer' or 'not related to warhammer at all'. This is an exercise in 'what would the blood bowl team from the *insert name of chosen fantasy race* play like?' In my case, I like the fluff of the wild forest and it's feral inhabitants, as opposed to the current 4 versions of the elf team which all work on variations of the passing game.