Should Brettonians be in Bloodbowl?

[Pipey]

I would like to see Bretonnians in Blood Bowl. I can also see how new players would be attracted to the game by what is a very characterful race.

I don't have a problem with new teams at all, as long as they're balanced. However, at the moment, many of the new teams seem to be under-powered "joke teams" e.g. vamps / ogres and others.

Creating new teams which are poorly balanced and just labeling them "Tier 2" (i.e. we actually meant them to be crap) is lazy design in my opinion. Worse still it smacks of designers who are afraid that they might create a team that is competitive, terrified the community might receive the team as another monster power team (as has happened with e.g. Undead / Amazons).

I would like to see the set of balanced teams expanded. There are two ways of doing this IMO:

1. amending the existing teams
2. creating new ones which are balanced

I haven't personally play tested the Bretonnian list in this thread, but it looks like a step in the right direction to me.

[plasmoid]

Hi Loony,
worth noting that in MBBL the Brettonian team is the only experimental team with a win percentage above 40. Around 48% to be more exact.
So these Brettonians can win, but are no-where near overpowered.

Cheers
Martin

[plasmoid]

Hi Mordredd,
just commenting on the fact that quite a few coaches have said that taking an ogre on a Brettonian team would be uncharacteristic.

And commenting on the fact that it is possible to play many teams using other teams statlines if we are willing to compromize a bit. But that I don't see any reason that we should.

Cheers
Martin

[Pipey]

Hi plasmoid,

I think you're Bret team looks really good. I did vote for the "yes but not this team" option on the poll mainly because I'm not sure about the basic peasants having AG access and the squires with wrestle are maybe a tad expensive.

I like the idea of having a couple of knights and the rest being commoners. I can't see too many knights getting together to play BB, they've got other stuff to worry about.

I could see knight errants playing a lot of BB.

[browwnrob]

No offence, but the constant debate about Brettonians is making me sick of the sight of the team

[Mo]

Teams should look like sports players and not escapees from a WFB battlefield. More WFB titles instead of positional players, ugh.

Heck no vote for me.

[Warpstone]

I just think there's too many official teams already and none of the new teams offer any really new possibilities.

I agree with this except for the LRB 5.0 Slann team which doesn't play like anything currently official at all.

Galak

In my experience, it seems like the Slann barely manage to even play blood bowl .

Anyway, here's a thought experiment: take away the name Brettonian from this team, playtest it and then see if the team is different enough from existing rosters to:

• a) be balanced against official temas
  b) be fun to play

The arguments regarding fluff and even the need for 'another' human team seem like strawmen that pre-empt the discussion about play-worthiness we would have over any other experimental team.

I'm the guy who reported on MBBL that this team was a blast to play, and I think alot of the detractors have not even considered that this roster offers a unique addition to gameplay.

For example, the pro/con argument about passing skills seems to have completely missed the point about yeomen ('runner's squires'): pick up the ball and hand it off to a knight ASAP. The Brettonian team is designed to run, and it does it with a combination of speed and toughness that's fun and challenging to use. They're less robust than Humans, but better at rushing.

If I'm right about how this team plays (i.e. all the linemen and squires serve as peons to get the ball into a knight's hands and then downfield ASAP), then how does that not mesh well with the brettonian fluff?

[Mordredd]

The arguments regarding fluff and even the need for 'another' human team seem like strawmen that pre-empt the discussion about play-worthiness we would have over any other experimental team.

I'm the guy who reported on MBBL that this team was a blast to play, and I think alot of the detractors have not even considered that this roster offers a unique addition to gameplay.

This may or may not be true (I haven't tried the team myself) but you can't just dismiss fluff concerns and concentrate on playability only. The aim is to produce both a team that is playable and one that fits the fluff of the race whose team this is supposed to be. An experimental roster created for a pre-existing race is a failure if it can't meet both of these aims.

And IMO the appropriate time to ask if we need another Human team is before we do all the hard work of making and testing a new roster, not after.

So I think that it is perfectly reasonable to raise these concerns and objections regardless of whether the team adds something unique and/or fun.

If I'm right about how this team plays (i.e. all the linemen and squires serve as peons to get the ball into a knight's hands and then downfield ASAP), then how does that not mesh well with the brettonian fluff?

Because they're meant to be like Arthurian style knights, not like real life medieval ones. They should be more about serving the people than the people serving them.

Because a BB team is more like an individual regiment than an army so mixing nobs and peons together is like mixing Mounted Squires (and mounted Peasants) into your Grail Knights unit.

Because Bretonnian society is very elitist and there is no obvious reason why they would find it difficult to fill all 16 available roster spots on a team with elite players. Nor is there, IMO, a good reason why they wouldn't want to.

[fen]

Because they're meant to be like Arthurian style knights, not like real life medieval ones. They should be more about serving the people than the people serving them.

Actually, that's only partially true. The WFB book doesn't give the complete story, you have to get the WFRP book for that. In a nutshell though, in principle they believe in serving the people, in practice it tends to work out the other way round. On the surface the country looks like a shining arthurian society, but it conceals some very dark truths.

Much like everything in the WH world.

[Mordredd]

So they should be teams of arrogant, preening, glory-hog, money-grubbing Griff-a-likes with better PR then?

Still supports my point that the team shouldn't be visibly stratified though.

[Warpstone]

Hi Mordredd, sorry if it seemed like I was completely dismissing consideration of fluff. Yes, fluff is important (it's a huge part of my enjoyment of the game), but it seems that Plasmoid's roster is being rejected from consideration for fluff reasons that are a bit spurious such as position names--there are actually many different names we can use for the yeoman/runner's squire, but does that mean we're obligated to rejig the stats of the position to match the name?

The roster design seems pretty good, and assume for a moment we have an agreement on the rules-side of the team design, I don't see what fluff obstacles can't be accomodated to make the team complete?

Because a BB team is more like an individual regiment than an army so mixing nobs and peons together is like mixing Mounted Squires (and mounted Peasants) into your Grail Knights unit.

Because Bretonnian society is very elitist and there is no obvious reason why they would find it difficult to fill all 16 available roster spots on a team with elite players. Nor is there, IMO, a good reason why they wouldn't want to.

I'm not really sure I can agree with the comparison of a BB team to an individual regiment. I'm weak on new WFB army lists, but does any other BB race represent an individual regiment? Atleast since 3rd ed, BB races have always featured interesting collections of a race's unit type: gutter runners, troll slayers, witch elves, BOB's etc

Solving the problem of position names is a no-brainer if you can remove the requirement that Brettonian classes should not intermingle to play BB. I think the fun part of Plasmoid's roster is that peasantry fulfill a very fluffy role: getting the crap pounded out of them to facilitate the fancy plays of their lords. IMHO, I think it's perfect, because when I think Brettonian, I mostly think knights and peasants, not just Arthurian romance. BTW, it seems more fluffy to me to keep the number of elite players low on any team, since they wouldn't get enough of the spotlight if they had 15 other teammates scoring TD's and making daring blitzes (heck, just look at the constant ego-massaging that an NFL coach has to do when he has more than one talented back or receiver on offense ).

In regards to the existance of another human team, where's the worry? Does this somehow devalue the uniqueness of the human roster? As has been mentioned earlier: there is a pretty fair claim that chaos humans warrant a distinct team list, why wouldn't a Brettonian list be possible? Does the generic nature of the human roster mean we can't have a roster for a team with unique fluff and gameplay?

[fen]

So they should be teams of arrogant, preening, glory-hog, money-grubbing Griff-a-likes with better PR then?

:D:D

[Joemanji]

So they should be teams of arrogant, preening, glory-hog, money-grubbing Griff-a-likes with better PR then?

Exactly. Which is why if a coach in my league asked for an alternative roster for Bretonnians, I do the following: swap GS access for GA on Human Blitzers, but otherwise leave the team unchanged. Fancy-dan stars and a team with a different style of play. Et voila! (and not a squire in sight).

[Kyrel]

Ok, guess I'll throw in my 2c as well.

From an entirely personal level, I really don't want to see a Bretonnian team in Blood Bowl, just as I'd rather have been without the Amazon, Lizardmen, Necromantic, and Khemri teams. The reason for me is that I subscribe to the idear that the Blood Bowl world is a completely seperate one from the Warhammer world, and the less overlapping I get, the happier I am. The 2nd ed. Blood Bowl fluff was fantastic from my point of view.

I don't mind the Bretonnia fluff in my Warhammer games, but I don't want to involve them in my Blood Bowl games.

To me, the Blood Bowl world is basically either our world's 20th century added fantasy races and magic, or potentially the Warhammer World setting 2-3000 years further ahead in time than the Warhammer Fantasy game setting. The races aren't constantly at war with each other, you have organised trade between nations, large multinational coorporations, and members of most races living in most places around the world.

As such, I'm not opposed to adding another human team, but I can't really say that I believe that the game needs it, and if it's supposed to be, then how about making some sort of original fluff for the team, and move away from the Warhammer titles. I'm not sure that I'll vote for another Human team anyway, but I'd be more positively disposed towards such a team than towards a Bretonnian team.


Kyrel

[Xtreme]

As such, I'm not opposed to adding another human team, but I can't really say that I believe that the game needs it, and if it's supposed to be, then how about making some sort of original fluff for the team, and move away from the Warhammer titles. I'm not sure that I'll vote for another Human team anyway, but I'd be more positively disposed towards such a team than towards a Bretonnian team.

Chaos Human.