Bretonnian Team. Final Tweaks.

[plasmoid]

Hi all,
presented below is my Bretonnian team. Following this post will be one with fluff for the team, one with the history of the team development, and finally a request for a little more feedback.

Basically, I wanted Bretonnians into BB. I know that the warhammer world isn't the BB world, but we can still draw inspiration from it. The Bretonnians are one of the major players in the warhammer world, and if we can have an amazon and a norse team in addition to the human team, then we can certainly have Bretonnians too.

The original team was created around '97, and since then it has been through tons of playtest, lots and lots of online discussion - meaning lots and lots of changes. The final result is this:

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***The Bretonnian Team*********************************************** 
The royal court-leagues of bretonnia employ some of the best players 
that mankind has to offer. With strong hands and steady nerves, the 
brave knights of bretonnia quest for the 'other' grail - the blood 
bowl trophy. 

# gc title stats access skills 
0-2 120K Knight of the Line   6339 GS block, dauntless, juggernaut
0-2 110K Knight of the Field    7338 GS block, catch 
0-2  70K Squire of the Line    6338 GS guard 
0-2  60K Squire of the Field  6337 GP Sure Hands 
0-12 40K Peasants                6337 G Loner

ReRolls 60K. Apothecary and Wizard as normal. No Big Guy. 
(Juggernaut is a skill from the vault: A player with this skill may treat
both down as a push back (and cancels stand firm) when blitzing. If you
are not playing in a vault league, you could house rule Juggernaut in as a
racial characteristic, so it isn't available to any other teams.)
********************************************************************** 

Cheers
Martin

[plasmoid]

The Fluff/Background for the Team:

Greetings Sire
I think it is time to re-introduce the Bretonnians into BB. I know that the warhammer world isn't the BB world, but we can still draw inspiration from it. The Bretonnians are one of the major players in the warhammer world, and if we can have an amazon and a norse team in addition to the human team, then we can certainly have Bretonnians too. The race has both fans and miniatures, and I don't think that being in the warhammer game should count against them.

Introduction
Today, blood bowl is a very well respected sport in Brettonia. It is considered a great test of martial skills, and is considered equal to jousting, in preparing knights for the rigours of war. Every baron wants his own team, and it is considered a great honour indeed to compete in the royal court leagues. Even fair damsels who set the errants for budding young knights, have started to request "the scoring of many touchdowns".

But this is not how it has always been.

In the early years of Blood Bowl, the brettonians knew little of the game, and indeed it was disdained as a pastime for the commoners and ruffians of lesser nations. This was only changed by a mistake on the part of Jean Pierre Sansfortune - a brave, though unlucky, questing knight. Roaming the grey mountains, he heard of a huge grail adorned with skulls, held in the imperial city of Altdorf.
This was surely the grail he thought.

Jean Pierre travelled to Altdorf, and learned of the terrible ordeal he had to endure in order to lay hands on the grail, a trial worthy of the bravest knight - and so he joined the Reikland Reavers. For many years he struggled, until finally one day, he lead (sort of) his team to victory at Blood Bowl XI. Imagine Jean Pierre's disappointment when he finally held the grail, for there was no liquid in it from which to sip, and no lady of the lake to present it to him. Shattered, and disgraced, he quit the team, to return to his native Brionne.

However, on the first night of his journey home, he had a vision, a true visitation from the lady of the lake herself. She granted him her favour, for succeeding in his arduous quest, having braved all perils, and done what no other knight had done before him.
Back in Brettonia he was greeted a hero, and from that day, the Bloodweiser trophy was considered a worthy alternative to the grail, and blood bowl the sport of the virtuous....

Questing for the Grail
Over the years a number of different Bretonnian teams have been available on the internet, and it seems that there have been 2 approaches to the team: One is to portray the Bretonnians as a team of knights, squires and hangers on, while the other is to make them very similar to the official human team. As the introduction reveals, I prefer a Bretonnian team with knights and squires. I like new teams to offer unique advantages and interesting challenges, rather than duplicate old ones.

It is well worth noting that these "knights" and "squires" are meant as cultural titles, in much the same way as dwarven slayers, runners and longbeards - and are not meant to indicate that the knights are charging onto the pitch on their warhorses in lance formation. Also, these knights are playing in full Blood Bowl kit, not full plate mail. They are of course aristocrats playing Blood Bowl, not misplaced military personnel.

It is important to see this team as a real Blood Bowl team, rather than warriors who stopped for a quick game:
The head coach decided to quest for the grail by forming a BB team.
Naturally his knights practice a lot for this rigorous quest.
Their squires too train, to best help their leiges.
And the linemen are whichever reasonably fit fillers the knights could hire, but are left to themselves for rudimentary practice.

Players and Stats
The team consists of 4 knights, and their 4 personal squires to serve these lieges. The rest of the team is made up of lowly peasants, who are terrible blood bowl players. Being a team of humans, there was no way that the players could have an ST or AG above 3. Instead, their great martial prowess would have to be portrayed with skills.

The Knights of the Field are young knights playing for glory, reputation, and the occasional fringe benefit, and their squires serve them by getting the ball to them quickly. You know what those Bretonnians say: "Score on the pitch - score with the ladies". The Knights of the Line are capable warriors, famous for their bone-crunching charges. Their squires are trained to help out their lieges in the thick of the fighting.

The peasants? Cannon fodder to tie up the opposition while the knights take care of business.

The team rerolls are expensive, to show that the peasants are not particularly skilled, while the knights are probably a little too interested in personal glory be labelled team players

The Team
And that's the team. The team combines the very best of players with players that are next to worthless. Sure, the knights are truly awesome blood bowl players, but it will prove quite a challenge to any coach to make do with so few players of notable quality.

Martin

[plasmoid]

A History lesson about the development of the team.

Hi all,
I'd like to present you all with the story of the evolution of my Bretonnian team. You might find it interesting.
Let's start with the original team from way back in 1997 (actually, there was one previous incarnation, but I don't remember it exactly). I apologize for any crazyness - it was a long time ago.

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0-2 Knight of the Sword   5339 block, pro, dauntless, multiblock GS
0-2 Royal thrower  7338 block, pro, catch, pass GAP
0-4 Squire      6338 Sure hands, guard G
0-12 Peasant        6227 dodge G
80K ReRolls. No Big Guy.

BASIC IDEA
*Reflect Bretonnian feudal society by using a few super players, their servants, and lots of cr*p players.
A team with the best and the worst. A Hierarchy.
*The team had very expensive rerolls, but the knights had pro skill, to make sure that they were the ones making all the plays.
*They are humans, so ST4 and AG4 was strictly off-limits.

STATLINES
*Peasants were to be simply roadblocks, good at ducking their masters blows.
*1 squire for each knight. Able to get the ball and assist with the fighting. Guard also very necessary with all those ST2 players.
*Knights of the sword were awesome fighters - able to best monsters or 2 ordinary men.
*Royal throwers were a unique kind of player. Catcher and thrower in one. Out for personal glory.

Through the years, the team has gone through lots of playtest (several 50 match seasons), and several online discussions (on the old mailing list, on TBB, and on fanatics forums), each resulting in changes to the roster. Thus, the team was forged through the feedback of many sources.

I'll summarize key developments below below:

Titles
The release of the warhammer army list, and reading an online idea for team fluff, got the stars of the team changed into Errant Knights (young glory seeking knights) and questing knights (questing for the BB trophy).
Recently, titles were changed away from this to more blood-bowl-like and less war-like names.

Squires
After the teams first season, it was decided that it didn't quite fit the concept. The squires were too good to be considered "medium" players, and a peasant with just block skill was definitely a very good road block. Not the intention at all!

The squires changed a bit (getting weaker), and were eventually split into 2 kinds, each serving one of the kind of knights. In fact, after several incarnations, they ended up sharing the original squires starting skills between them.

Peasants
As mentioned, to good with their quick rise to blodge. The peasants lost dodge, and eventually settled on the 6327 statline. There were those who found such a statline subhuman, but their low AG and AV played an important role on the team.
Eventually, an online poll showed that 6327 was indeed an acceptable solution.

Finesse-knights
After some online discussion, all the knights lost the pro skill, and the reroll price was dropped slightly. Cool concept aside, the general response had been that pro simply wasn't a starting skill, and that 4 starting skills was over the top.

The Finesse-knights (now Knights of the Field) changed from thrower-catchers, into more ordinary throwers. Then it was brought up that in BB it is not the thrower (quarterback) but the reciever who gets all the glory. Thus roles were reversed so the knights became the catchers, and their squires brought them the ball as throwers. A human blitzer with catch and AG-skill access wasn't universally popular, so eventually they switched to ST-access.
At last, the Knight of the Line had become a recognizable human blitzer, with catch.

Bash-knights
The bash-knights (now Knights of the Line) had lost pro, but gained MA6, making both kinds of knights "blitzer" types, and making the knights of the line clearly supirior to the Knights of the field. Thus was also good for keeping the hierarchy in the roster - and the squires too were stratified like this.
In Bretonnia, everybody must know their place.

Multiple Block on the bash-knights still peeved some people, and I eventually took the matter to a poll. In the end, the knights lost MultiBlock, but got the new vault skill Juggernaut. I had always wanted to give the knights a blitz related skill (but horns was out of the question!), so I found juggernaut to be a very fitting substitute.

And that's what the team looks like today.
It has certainly changed a lot - and I'm happy to say that as the team has changed, more and more people have said that they liked it, and have even shown an interest in playing the team.

To my mind, 4 issues remain:
1) Pricing. There are those who feel that the team is too cheap.
30K Linemen is the issue here.
But - 4 official teams with 30K linemen already exist.
Also, starting line-ups available to Bretonnians do not differ from those available to norse and amazon (and Humans). Fitting, since Bretonnians are human too.
Finally, I've dealt with this "cheapness" by taking full (formula) price for every skill and stat on the position players, giving no discounts, and taking 70K for rerolls. No other team gets priced this harshly.
I'm convinced that there is no problem.

2) Number of squires.
There are those who think it would be more elegant to have just one kind of squire.
But having "personal" squires for the knights is a key fluff/style issue to me.
This is a concept issue that I remain adamant about.

3) Not everybody like guard skill on the squires. Some do, but others believe it to be too powerful. Playtest hasn't shown this to be a problem, and the team has taken quite a few hits to its power, so I'm not sure about removing guard.
The only fitting substitute (to my eye) is the vault skill grab.
But will this make the team too weak?
And is it really a better choice than guard?
Feedback needed!

4) The original concept of restricted reroll access for "the masses".
I've long ago abandoned "pro and expensive rerolls".
But the new vault skill Loner (where a team reroll has no effect but is simply lost on a d6 roll of 1-3) makes it possible to do something similar.

Sticking Loner on the peasant would make them truly awful, and would allow me to give them the "standard" 6337 statline and still price fairly them at 30K.
On the other hand, the poll showed good support for 6327.

I know that the 6327 works.
Would 6337 Loner be better? Or would it be uglier/cludgey'er?
Feedback needed!

I hope you enjoyed the history lesson.
Feedback appriciated.
Cheers
Martin

[plasmoid]

Hi all,
for those who skipped the history lesson, here are the 2 last issues that I'd like your feedback on:

Guard Squires
Not everybody like guard skill on the squires. Some do, but others believe it to be too powerful. Playtest hasn't shown this to be a problem, and the team has taken quite a few hits to its power, so I'm not sure about removing guard.
The only fitting substitute (to my eye) is the vault skill grab. [allows crooked pushbacks, a reversed sidestep].
But will this make the team too weak?
And is it really a better choice than guard?
Feedback appriciated!

Peasant Loners
The original concept was restricted reroll access for "the masses".
I've long ago abandoned "pro skill for knights and expensive rerolls".
But the new vault skill Loner [Means that on a d6 roll of 1-3, any team reroll spent by the player is wasted] makes it possible to do something similar.

Sticking Loner on the peasant would make them truly awful, and would allow me to give them the "standard" 6337 statline and still price fairly them at 30K.
On the other hand, the poll showed good support for 6327.

I know that the 6327 works.
Would 6337 Loner be better? Or would it be uglier/cludgey'er?
Is it a good idea to put a negaskill on a teams lineman?
Feedback appriciated!

Cheers
Martin

[Vero]

For your last proposal I'd start with:

2x Knight of the Line 240
2x Knight of the Field 220
2x Squire of the Line 140
1x Squire of the Field 60
4x Peasants 120
2x RR 140
FF 8 80

Which has almost all positionals, adequate rerolls (thanks to sure hands and block) and high FF. So, it's a good team as it has also high potential because of S and P accesses. I don't know against what you have playtested this team but it at least "seems" a bit broken (mainly the guard to start with).

Guard is a poweful starting skill so yes for Grab Squires. To compensate give all Squires av8.

Ag2 isn't human, 6327 is just a faster skeleton. Yes for 6337 Loner G 30k or even 5337 Loner G 30k.

[Jeroen]

Why not start with an apothecary?

[plasmoid]

Hi Vero,
thanks for your "votes". Duly noted.
(BTW, on peasants, just pointing out that I took a poll, and most coaches didn't find 6327 sub-human. But lets not go there again).

As for the starting team, you could do similar (or better) starting teams for Amazon, Norse and Human. And I assume you agree that those are not broken. I've got the line-ups here:
http://home.worldonline.dk/nyskes/bbowl ... Humans.htm

As Jeroen said, maybe an apothecary?
Personally, considering that the next reroll will be 140K, I would probably scrap another position player and buy a 3rd reroll.

Either way, their growth potential is not so great compared to the other humans. No big guy to buy, and every lineman purchase is seriously weaker than a human, amazon or norse lineman.

Cheers
Martin

[phil78]

Guard seems to suit the fluff better for squires as it would be used helping the knight to make a better block where grab could only be used when the squire himself is making a block.

[Mad Jackal]

Plasmoid.

I think the guard should stay. I'm torn about the squire getting Stregth chart too though. -He's got guard which leaves "non-assisting the Blitzers" skills like Mighty Blow pile On, Jauggernaut and the like for the choosing.

Not a huge complaint, or a real concrete idea to "fix", but wanted to point it out. With all the S chart, this team will develop to bash a lot. Making squires more supportive roled, -shadowing, tackle, sure hands, pass block (General skills) might provide more tactical movements on pitch in trying to marshall the correct pieces into the correct formations/situations than straight up "Throw yourselves at them Boys!"

Peasants with loner might actually be the way to go. The orders being given to the peasants who are much more capable (should be) - might still get mis-communicated. It would show the differences between the classes more- especially in the way they communicate.

Knight to peasant.
"No you lowly cur, I said go left! Not right!" "You there, go over there and stand in front of the Ogre until I can get there To which the peasant might make it (dodgeing lets say) or not....

I do like your team, though 6337 Loner would definately get the 40k price tag in my book. (Less moaning about 30k linos too.)

Knights of the Line and Field are by far the best two names I've seen yet for those players.

I'd play them.
cheers
Mad Jackal

[DesTroy]

I've been following this thread pretty closely (even though I haven't put my 2 cents in), mainly because I like the idea of different human teams, for variety's sake. I've been running a standard humie team this season in my league, but have them based in Brionne. This new Bretonnian team makes it more fun IMHO to set up a team that is closer to the fluff. Playing straight humies is OK, but my guys have been taking more than their fair share of losses (but that's OK, I don't claim to be a great coach, or even a good one ).

Mad Jackal's suggestions right at the end should be adopted (Loner for peasants, Guard for squires, etc) and the team list finalized as such. I'm also looking at adding some of plasmoid's Copenhagen tournament teams to my league next season, and this would be a perfect start! Well done!

[plasmoid]

Hi Mad Jackal and DesTroy,
thanks for the kind words
I too am getting to a point where I'm very satisfied with the team.

I had hoped for more feedback, but it seems like most people who responded prefer guard on the squires, and 6337 loner peasants.
I'm inclined to go that way myself.

about squires: I see where you're going, but I think I'll keep the ST-access. Not only does it prevent me from hearing "hey, these guys start with a 'doubles' skill" - but it also gives all the teams position players access to something more than general skills.
This is the way with all the human teams, and gives the team good development opportunities, which I think they need since their linemen can't expect glorious progression.

about peasants: 6337 loner could be the solution. Only problem is that 2 vault skills, it is definitely moving away from LRB. But so be it.
I personally think that a 6337 loner should be 30K.
Actually 35, but since the team gets no other discounts, pays 20K for every single skill, and generally gets scr*wed on prices, my money is on 30K.

Alternatively, I could fiddle with the pricing on other players, and go with 40K.
OR - and this is tempting, put the peasants at 40K, but knock 10 or 20K of the reroll price. After all, with loner peasants, the rerolls mainly represents the skill of the knights/squires, and no longer the peasants.

Thanks again for your replies, I appriciate it

Oh, and DesTroy, happy to hear you like some of the CTR teams.
I've created a site where those teams make the transition to vault rules, if you're interested:
http://home.worldonline.dk/nyskes/bbowl/VVL/vvl.htm

I'll be adding photos of all the unofficial teams in about 2 months. My Tilea team is coming along great

Cheers
Martin

[David Bergkvist]

Considering that a thrall costs 40k, 30k would be a fitting price for a peasant if they have the same stats but loner added. (Not that I like the idea of peasants being different from thralls in any way, but you know that already.)

Why do the squires of the line have AV8 and strength access? Fluff-wise, they should have AV7 (their masters will just purchase new ones if they die), and no strength access (they're not supposed to hurt opponents themselves, just help their masters to do so).

[plasmoid]

Hi David,
well, it can always be discussed how to exactly translate the fluff into stats.
So, mainly, it's for balance.

But, fluffwize, they are AV8 because they are more tooled up for a fight (like a human lineman) and besides, good staff is hard to replace
The ST-access is because you can also greatly help your master by clearing away annoying opponents. While this is not their main task, they can sure learn it as their BB experience grows.

Cheers
Martin

[David Bergkvist]

So, mainly, it's for balance.

I think that you'll find it easier to get this team accepted, balance wise, if they have AV 7 and no strength access. Guard has to be cancelled out by some drawback.

But, fluffwize, they are AV8 because they are more tooled up for a fight (like a human lineman)

Except that human linemen have neither strength access nor guard.

good staff is hard to replace

But the reason they are good staff is because you gave them overly powerful stats and skills, so this is circular logic.

The ST-access is because you can also greatly help your master by clearing away annoying opponents. While this is not their main task, they can sure learn it as their BB experience grows.

Human linemen can apparantly not learn to "clear away annoying opponents", despite that this is their function just as much as it is a bretonnian squire's function.

Btw, I thought the idea was that it was the knights that were supposed to be the good players, not the squires.

[plasmoid]

Hi David,
from experience, the loss would be too big.
I've played this team, both for and against. I've discussed it many times online, and made many changes.
But I believe that crossing this line would be bad for the team.

I didn't say that the squire was a lineman, but that he had the AV of a lineman, which shouldn't be an unbelievable stat if you aren't a weedy peasant.

My point as that a human (AG3) based team needs its 8 position players, and that these position players should have access to something other than general skills. Thats part of being a position player.

And I don't see the squire as a positional superman. ST-access for later use, lineman stats, and 1 good skill - but a skill that any player with ST-access can take on their first skill pick.

>Guard has to be cancelled out by some drawback.
and I think the team has many drawbacks.

Cheers
Martin