Daemon Team (lots of playtest)

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 4:07 pm

Hi all,
I'm really tempted by the 70K roster.
Weaker, but also a bit easier to start up. Looks right to me

Circular Logic said:
>I would definitley cut off the Piling on instead of the MA. They should be
>MA5 at least... I mean... compare them to BoBs...
Not sure I know what you mean.
But comparing them to BoBs, I would like them to feel a bit more deadly. I.e. they should do more than duff people over.

>Oh.. and cut off the gaze..
Why? That's so like a daemonette.

I'm considering frenzy instead of piling on on the bloodletters.
It causes fewer casualties as a starting skill, but is nice to have around long term. Comments?

Also, this would mean that these daemons have the same skills/traits as the daemons used on the 4th edition rosters: Frenzy - gaze+claw - horns+foulA - BigHand.

It looks balanced to me.
Maybe it's time for some LRB playtest with this new roster.

sean newboy · Post by **sean newboy** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 4:22 pm

The gaze is slaneesh like but who will use it with the new rules.

DanielLaw · Post by **DanielLaw** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 12:20 am

I prefer Frenzy over Piling On (more Khornate, less big clumsy fatty). I think it's best to go with whatever in most 'in character', so keep the Hypnotic Gaze (even if it is a bit useless now). Still think Deamonettes should be AG3 though (can't see where else to cut back though).

gaijin

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 8:13 am

Hi Newboy,
at least they'll be using it more than vampires, who can usually use their supirior ST to knock things over instead.

And Gaijin, I'm starting to swing around towards frenzy too.

AG3 on the daemonettes could work. We've played with it and it was OK. But IMO it kind of breaks with the teams concept. Having 8 players with ST4 and decent ball handling sounds a bit much.
Maybe AG-skill access on the daemonettes would make them look a bit more agile?

Martin

Ithilkir · Post by **Ithilkir** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 7:50 pm

Couple of things regarding the 'fluff' of the team.

The 4 chaos gods HATE each other in particular Khorne and Slaanesh are bitter enemies and Tzeentch and Nurgle hate each other to bits, there is no way they'd be on the same pitch.

Pink Horrors no longer exist, they're now simply 'Chaos Horrors' with extra arms, tails.. The most random of the lesser demon.

'Ed Basha' · Post by **'Ed Basha'** » Fri Feb 20, 2004 1:56 am

I know from reading that you aren't into new skills for simplicity, but I think the easiest way to ensure that these guys survive for a would be an entirely Demon like thing

Demonic aura: The Chaos creatures av is a reflection of the power of the chaos gods, and cannot be modified by skills like mighty blow or piling on. Therefore, even if it's only a seven, it's always a seven. The savage orcs and forest gobbos had it with tattoos.

And if you go with the wfb fluff, it fits. In the realms of chaos, these guys are invulnerable to mortal attack. It's only when they leave that place and rampage in the mortal world that they can be hurt and killed.

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:38 pm

Hi Ed Basha,
I know about the "daemonic aura", but I really dislike adding new skills, and besides, I want them to have that achilles heel.

Ithilkir,
AFAIK, the animosity between the gods has lessened somewhat over time. At least there was an all daemon army. If they can go to war together they can play BB together

But anyway,
with the 70K version, frenzy on the bloodletters, and no wizard, I'm looking at something like this:
0-4 70K Plague Bearers..4417 horns, foul app.;.G+PH
0-4 70K Blood Letters...4427 frenzy;........G+ST+PH
0-4 70K Daemonettes.....7327 claw, gaze;.......G+PH
0-4 70K Horrors....6337 big hand;.......G+PA+PH
80K Rerolls, apothecary + wizard as normal.

Suggestions?
AG skills on the daemonettes?
No PA skills on the horrors?
No PH access except on the horrors?
Pricing suggestions?

Martin

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 11:51 am

Hi all,
reviving an old thread.
3 key things has happened:
1) PBBL has come around, lots of interesting things have happened, which has made an impact on our daemon team.
2) I got my hands on the new WHFB chaos army list, and have found reason to tweak a few things - especially the horrors.

3) The team presented in post one, was a toned down version of a team we were using, and which Nazgit thought was insanely overpowered.
Well, now our season is over, and our 3 daemon teams (the stronger/"overpowered" version) played in our season ending tournament.
All 3 had qualified for this tournament, by being among the top 5 of the 9 coaches in their conference. 2 of the 3 coaches usually do very well.
This is what happened:

Team 1: Children of Chaos.
Looked extremely good, having won an extra prize giving more mutations:
Against Orcs: TDs 0-4, cas 4-9
Against homemade mixed: TDs 1-2, cas 2-8
Against Necro: TDs 0-4, cas 2-9
Against Norse: TDs 1-2, cas 3-11
Total: 0/0/4, TDs 2-12, cas 11-37

Team 2: The Crown
(coached by the weakest of the coaches)
Against Human: TDs 2-3, cas 5-2
Against Wood Elf: TDs 3-4, cas 7-4
Against Khemri: TDs 1-3, cas 1-8
Against Skaven: TDs 6-6, cas 8-2
Total: 0/1/3, TDs 12-16, cas 19-16

Team 3: Abominations
(coached by a past season winner)
Against Goblins: TDs 0-1, cas 2-5
Against DarkElf: TDs 0-5, cas 6-6
Against Skaven: TDs 2-4, cas 6-3
4th match never played.
Total: 0/0/3, TDs 2-10, cas 14-14

Total Result:
0 wins, 1 tie, 10 losses. TDs: 16-38. Cas: 44-67.

Nazgit, I feel vindicated

Anyways, I've still decided to tweak/weaken the team a bit, but I'm not concerned that the team is overpowered.

Cheers
Martin

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 12:03 pm

Hi all,
as mentioned, with the "new" chaos army and PBBL rules, I've decided to tweak our daemon team. The new version looks like this:

***************Daemon Team*********************************
"The 4 chaos gods are strange and otherworldly entities,
incomprehensible to the mortal mind. But in one respect they're the same
as everyone else. After a long day, they like to kick back and watch their
favourite Blood Bowl team triumph on the pitch."

0-4 80K Plague Bearers..5417 horns, foul app.;.G+PH
0-4 80K Blood Letters...5427 frenzy;........G+ST+PH
0-4 80K Daemonettes.....8337 claw, gaze, no hands;.......G+AG+PH
0-4 80K Horrors....6337 extra arms, regenerate....G+PA+PH
80K Rerolls, apothecary + wizard as normal.
*************************************************************

A version based on 70K stats is ofcourse still viable, but I think that such a team would have too much of a hard time in the late season.

I know that some will think that ST4 + frenzy is a no-no. Our experience tells us that on this team it is fine.

The new "no hands" finally allowed us to have daemonettes with better AG, without the team becoming a super ball-handling team.

In a PBBL environment, the removal of fang will mean no claw+fang daemonettes.

Horrors got changed to better fit their new look. Note that PBBL extra arms gives +1 to pick ups also, so they are OK with the ball.

What do you all think?
Martin

MickeX · Post by **MickeX** » Sun Jul 18, 2004 12:40 pm

Good work on all that playtesting!

Just an idea: how about making the deamonettes 6347 or 7347 instead of 8337? I think it'd stick better with the look of the minis?

Besides, AG4 No hands hasn't been done so far, while the current one looks a lot like the JJ-style werewolf.

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 6:20 am

Hi Micke,
that actually sounds like a good idea.
I mean, daemonettes are known to be lithe and all that.
6347 claw, gaze, no hands sounds about right

I'm still considering whether this ought to be a "70K" team. I mean, the 80K team is more playable in the long term, but that doesn't really help if the team is so hard to start up that it gets wiped out before it gets there....

Martin

Yavatol · Post by **Yavatol** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 5:06 pm

Although your play test data proves otherwise, I can sort of see why some people would think this to be a very strong team. It is very versatile. You can easily adopt to your opponents team. Against bashing teams you are able to field upto 8 st 4 players, which none of them can actually manage, and you are still able to field enough ball handlers to do a decent passing game. On the other hand those deamonettes with their improved speed or agility, claws, agility skills and access to abilities are perfect elf /catcher hunters. You have access to 4 x foul apperance to stop passing games. I understand that it requires a full roster to make the most of it if this team, but when it gets rolling I can see it becoming very, very tough. What was the max team rating that your test teams reached?

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 8:05 am

Hi Yavatol,
I don't remember the exact ratings, but they were in the 300s.
We play a 40-50 match season, and the daemons got this pasting at the very end of it.

IMO, 2 great problems for the team:
When going up against bashy teams, or even finesse teams who fight back, their AV7 combined with low AG means that they cann not pick the fights, and quite often get creamed. AV7 players without dodge skill suffer a lot of injuries.

The second problem is that you only put 11 guys on the field. This sounds silly, but it means that if you want to "overpower" your opponent with ST4 players, then you won't be fielding all those nice claws - not to mention some ball handling. etc.

I just posted this on BBforum, and I might as well repeat it here:
I'm also quite torn over whether it should be the 70K or 80K team. IMO, the 70K version is weak in the long run, but an 80K version is quite hard to get off the ground, and may never reach "the long run".

So, I'll take a shot at the 70K stats:
0-4 70K Plague Bearers..6417 foul app.;.G+PH
0-4 70K Blood Letters...4427 horns;........G+ST+PH
0-4 70K Daemonettes.....6347 claw, gaze, no hands;.......G+AG+PH
0-4 70K Horrors....6337 extra arms, regenerate....G+PA+PH
80K Rerolls, apothecary + wizard as normal.

It's quite hard to get the prices right here. Blood Letters are probably a little overpriced, and Horrors a bit underpriced.
In this version, Blood Letters have horns rather than frenzy, which should weaken them quite a bit.

Comments? (on either version, or the choice between them).
Martin

Mazikeen · Post by **Mazikeen** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 7:10 pm

I am new in this forum, so I hope this comment will not seem too stupid...

The legend tell the four chaos gods can work together, but they are still ennemies...

How about a negative trait to reflect this? Something like:

If a demon ends his movement standing next to a demon of another god, he has to test for not throwing a block at him...

Anyway, I suppose that any kind of negative trait could strangely help having the daemons teams getting closer to the "old-world spirit"

Mazikeen

plasmoid · Post by **plasmoid** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 3:53 pm

Hi Mazikeen,
thanks for your comment.
However, I'm not a fan of special rules on teams.
Instead, I tried to show the daemons enmity by their high reroll price: 80K, the highest in the game.
Martin