Beasts of Chaos Team

[tSK]

One of the players in my League is a big fan of Beasts of Chaos, and wanted to know if there was a Beasts of Chaos team. I couldn't find one, so I came up with the following...

( 0-16 ) Ungors Cost:40,000 / MA:6 / ST:3 / AG:3 / AV:7 / Horns / AM / GSP
( 0-8 ) Gors Cost:60,000 / MA:6 / ST:3 / AG:3 / AV:8 / Horns / GSM / AP
( 0-4 ) Bestigors Cost:80,000 / MA:6 / ST:3 / AG:3 / AV:8 / Horns, Block, Thick Skull / GSM / AP
( 0-2 ) Centigors Cost:90,000 / MA:7 / ST:3 / AG:2 / AV:8 / Horns, Sprint, Sure Feet, Bone Head / SM / GAP
( 0-1 ) Minotaur Cost:150,000 / MA:5 / ST:5 / AG:2 / AV:8 / Loner, Frenzy, Horns, Mighty Blow, Thick Skull, Wild Animal / SM / GAP

I cooked this up by trying to find the stats of comparable Warhammer units that have already been listed in Blood Bowl. I'm sure it needs some serious balancing work, and I'd appreciate it if any more experienced players could give me some pointers.

[Mordredd]

Balance wise I doubt that you will find your version is overpowered.

The Beasts team concept has been discussed many times before. I'm sure you'll be able to find several of those discussions with a search. Yours happens to be pretty close to what I would* do so my advice is to give it a go and see how well it works out for you.



[*The differences being:
+1 MA, -horns on the Ungor so that there is a reason to take one over a Gor (and I think that their horns are too small for butting).
+1 MA on the Bestigor so that they are more than just a Gor with a slight head start.
-Bonehead, +1 ST, +frenzy, +Wild Animal on the Centigor to better represent the drunken frenzy and because having 3 wild animals on the team makes it more unique.]

[fen]

Mordredd's alterations are close to what we use for the beastman team:

0-16 Ungors 40,000 6337 None AM GSP
0-4 Gors 60,000 6338 Horns GSM AP
0-2 Bestigors 90,000 5428 Horns GSM AP
0-2 Centigors 120,000 6428 Horns, Sprint, Frenzy, Wild Animal SM GAP
0-1 Minotaur 150,000 5528 Loner, Frenzy, Horns, Mighty Blow, Thick Skull, Wild Animal SM GAP
70K Rerolls

Main reason for the differences are no block on players that can make ST4 Blitzes.
3 Wild Animals which is tactically more challenging to use.
Centigors are weaker than the Bull Centaurs - to make sure the team doesn't just become an improved chaos dwarf side like your original listing was.
Bestigores + Centigors kind of parallel Chaos Warriors, but less agile and less av in trade for ST4 + Horns enabling ST5 Blitzes.
8 "positionals" + 1 big guy maximum to force Ungors onto the pitch to avoid Orc team "no-lineman syndrome."

imo it still needs work. But I love the drunken Wild Animal Centigors and the horrible turns where you stare at both Centigors and the Minotaur, none of them are able to make Block actions and you really want to Blitz with a Bestigor.

[Moogul]

That looks like an interesting team Fen - I'd been thinking recently about trying to play a beastman team, might see if my league mates are up for using your list.

Limited the positionals to 8 is a very good idea, otherwise Ungors would rarely be played (their regular access to Agility being their only other bonus).

The one qualm I'd have with the list is that the Centigors seem too good in relation to the minotaur. Comparing Centigors to Minotaurs, You lose 1str, mighty blow and thick skull, but you also gain 1ma, sprint, and you don't get loner. I think the lack of loner could be a big thing, making you much more willing to risk using Centigors in important moves with the safety of rerolls, and with regular access to Str, mighty blow will come soon. The str hurts, but Centigors already have higher than average strength, meaning they roll 2dice in the majority of unassisted blocks. I don't know much about centigors in normal bloodbowl, but I'd consider either removing frenzy, or adding loner. Either that, or make the minotaur better - I'm not sure exactly how the centigor compares to others, but the minotaur seems vastly overpriced in comparison.

[fen]

It's the problem of the Minotaur in fact as the damn thing is over priced by about 10K imo. Oh and I typoed the cost of the Centigors, they should be 130K at least.

The options with toning the Centigors down that we toyed with were.
1) Remove another MA
2) Add Loner to them
3) Rebuilding them without Frenzy and Wild Animal and giving them Bone Head or Really Stupid instead. But that just makes them so much better than most Big Guys.
4) Going back to the drawing board and building a ST3 version.
5) Removing Horns from them. (not really an option )
6) Increase them to 140K a piece
7) Move mutation access to doubles
Some combination of the above like MA5 for 140K

They're a pain the the butt to pin down somewhere that's balanced and still matches the established design.
They're Centauroid (Should mean Sure Feet, Sprint and ST4/AG2 as they have a horses body, but this makes it harder to reach the ball and manuver), they have horns, animal heads, humanoid torsos and they're drunken louts. And if they're Wild Animals, they Get Frenzy automatically.

The real comparison comes here: (going with MA5 for now)

Code: Select all

Bull Centaur  130K - 6429 - Thick Skull, Sure Feet, Sprint - GS - AP
Centigor      130K - 5428 - Frenzy, Horns, Sprint, Wild Animal - GS(M?) AP

They hit harder than BCs but break a lot easier, and they're nowhere near as good at ball handling. But they are Seriously good crowd pushers. Maybe I could cut Sprint totally, but it's not really that great without Sure Feet to back it up.

It's tough. The Centigors have caused more concern than anything else in the side here. We're still eyeing them nervously and wondering when the other shoe will drop.

[Moogul]

I don't know a whole lot about the lore behind centigors, but from a purely game balance point of view I'd probably make them more different from the Minotaur. As it is, they're both strong, not to slow, frenzied blitzing machines. I'd be tempted to try and make the centigors faster, and emphasise their movement a bit more and make them slightly weaker in the damage department - leave that to the minotaur and the bestigors. The problem there though, is that most of their offensive capabilities comes from horns and frenzy, neither of which you can really remove. Reducing their strength also seems a bit odd considering their stature.

I guess the other option would be to remove then entirely - Having just Ungors, Gors, Bestigors and the Mino is still plenty of players for a team.

Edit: Ok, giving this a bit more thought: Using your current list Fen, beastman teams can field 4 str 4 players and 1 str 5 player. This is a pretty strong line, even if you'd want to field the centigors and minotaur out wide - you could still field a str 4/5/4 Los - just as strong as the normal Chaos team. Now I don't know a whole lot about beastmen, but I don't think they should naturally be as tough as Chaos warriors. I get the feeling that beastmen would prefer a running game, keeping the game on the move, using their horns to blitz their way past, and trying not to get bogged down in a huge ruck.

To this end, why not make all the non-minotaur players str 3? It stops them being quite so tough in blocks, but with horns they'd still be throwing 2 dice on most blitzes.

Then you could end up with a lineup like this:

40k 0-16 Ungors 6 3 3 7 None AM (ASP)
60k 0-4 Gors 6 3 3 8 Horns GSM (AP)
80k 0-2 Bestigors 6 3 2 8 Block, Horns GSM (AP)
100k 0-2 Centigors 6 3 2 8 Frenzy, Juggernaut, Sprint, Horns GSM (AP)
150k 0-1 Minotaur 5 5 2 8 Loner, Frenzy, Horns, Mighty Blow, Thick Skull, Wild Animal SM (GAP)

(note: prices largely madeup, I don't really know that much about the pricing formula for players)

Both Bestigors and Centigors make good blitzers, particularly Centigors where the combination of Frenzy and Juggernaut makes them great for clearing their way through. But when you get bogged down in stationary blocks, they're not so overpowering.

Anyway, I'm probably just crazy, but I think it'd be good to keep them different from the normal chaos team (and particular the Chaos Warrior team, if one ever materializes, which I'm sure will be more bashy).

[fen]

80k 0-2 Bestigors 6 3 2 8 Block, Horns GSM (AP)

Is not allowed as a starting player. No player in the game has Block (to start) if they have the ability to perform ST4 Blocks or Blitzes. My Bestigor is a very different creature and nowhere near as 'tough' as a Chaos Warrior anyway. The CW is an agile and strong player suited to become a blitzer or blocker. The Bestigors are best used as Blitzers, but have to struggle with the fact that they're AG2.

100K 5428 Frenzy, Horns, Wild Animal GSM AP

is the only change I'd consider, and frenzy is probably too great a risk on these guys just for the ability to have more Wild Animals on the team.

100k 0-2 Centigors 6 3 2 8 Frenzy, Juggernaut, Sprint, Horns GSM (AP)

Officially now this is what's known as an 'over described' positional. Before it was possible to get away with it because Wild Animal always appears with Frenzy and as of such can be considered 1 Skill. Plus they now add nothing new to the game (before they were a bit interesting as the first non-big guys with wild animal), now they're just beastmen with a pile of skills when they start.

So sorry, I don't think either of those versions solve the problems and worries I've had with the list. In fact they both raise up more and break some of the cardinal starting player/team rules we tried to stick within when coming up with this squad. While removing the flavour that the coaches in my league enjoy (multiple Wild Animals on one team.)

[darkcyde]

I love it when ppl start posting beast of chaos blood bowl teams. Mainly because i want an official (or at least semi-official) one. The more ppl who talk about it the better chance some sort of (semi-) official consensus can be found.

0-16.Ungor........40K.6 3 3 7.
0-16.Beastmen..60K.6 3 3 8.Horns, Wild Animal
0-2..Centigor.....??K.7 3 2 9.Horns, Wild Animal, Frenzy, Sprint
0-4..Bestigor......??K.6 3 3 9.Horns, Juggernaught
0-1..Minotaur...150K.5 5 2 8.Loner, Frenzy, Mighty Blow, Horns, Thick Skull, Wild Animal

Rerolls 70K

Skills - ungors GM PAS
- beastmen GSM PA
- bestigor GSM PA
- centigors GSM PA or SM GPA
- minotaur SM GPA

This was the team i suggested in this thread. With some edits.
viewtopic.php?t=20749&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0.
It was going along fairly well untill it turned into a what team is what tier thread

So for those who like positional names - ungors/beastmen = linemen. centigor = blitzer. bestigor = runner/blitzer. minotaur = big guy.

Beasts of chaos beastmen have wild animal as the warriors on the chaos team keep them in check. So you can have weedy ungors who will obey you every turn or the tougher horns capable beastmen who might just growl.

Juggernaught helps display the strength of bestigor with out actually uping their strength. They are just stronger more discplined beasts.

Wild animal almost across the board represents the "unruly" rule from the fantasy rules (I know ppl don't like to use fantasy as a reason for rules). To be honest after re-reading unruly, frenzy would represent it better but I think in bloodbowl wild animal just has a better fit.

Also added a wild suggestion of having the team special rule of -
ambush horn: once per half the beasts coach may sound the horn to automatically pass all wild animal checks that turn. Not to crazy, well I don't think so.

edit - had brain failure.

[Kyrel]

Guess I'll throw in a couple of cents as well...

0-8.Ungor........40K.6 2 3 7.
0-8.Bestigor.....70K.6 3 3 8. Horns, Juggernaught
0-4.Centigor....100K.8 3 2 8. Sprint, Sure Feet, Bone Head
0-1.Minotaur...150K.5 5 2 8.Loner, Frenzy, Mighty Blow, Horns, Thick Skull, Wild Animal

Rerolls 70K

Skills
- ungors GA PM
- bestigor GS PM
- centigors GS PM
- minotaur SM GA

Basically I'd screw around with canon and make the Ungor and Bestigor into 0-8 choices, thereby more or less forcing a Coach to use both. I'd let the Ungors represent weak but agile creatures, and let the Beastigors represent the muscle on the team. The Minotaur is a Big Guy, and the Centigor is basically meant to be a sprinter type creature. Being drunk, their coordination is questionable at times, and from time to time they just can't be relied upon. Team is meant to be a running type team, hence my reason for restricting the Passing access. I'd also restrict the Mutation access a bit, as while Beastmen might be creatures of Chaos, the majority tend to hang around all over the world, taking them further from the mutating influences of the Chaos Wastes.

Anyway, fire away.

[Moogul]

No player in the game has Block (to start) if they have the ability to perform ST4 Blocks or Blitzes.

Right, I didnt know that. Is it an absolutely hard and fast rule? It seems like it severely reduces the combinations of players with horns.

My Bestigor is a very different creature and nowhere near as 'tough' as a Chaos Warrior anyway.

He seems as tough to me. Same strength, only one less armour, and the ability to blitz at strength 5. Admittedly I'm a coach who probably underestimates armour, but those Bestigors can certainly hold their own. The reason I made a str 3+block version was because I thought they have less potential that way - it's much easier for a str 4 player to get block than a blocker to get +1str. So whilst horns + block is a very powerful starting combination, it wont be so strong later.

100k 0-2 Centigors 6 3 2 8 Frenzy, Juggernaut, Sprint, Horns GSM (AP)

Officially now this is what's known as an 'over described' positional. Before it was possible to get away with it because Wild Animal always appears with Frenzy and as of such can be considered 1 Skill. Plus they now add nothing new to the game (before they were a bit interesting as the first non-big guys with wild animal), now they're just beastmen with a pile of skills when they start.

I think they add something - they'd be the only starting players (as far as I know) with juggernaut, and the combo of Juggernaut and Frenzy makes them very interesting for forcing holes in opposition lines. Again, is there a hard and fast rule about how many skills a starting player can have? You could easily remove sprint to get down to 3 (like witch elves, wardancers etc.)

So sorry, I don't think either of those versions solve the problems and worries I've had with the list. In fact they both raise up more and break some of the cardinal starting player/team rules we tried to stick within when coming up with this squad. While removing the flavour that the coaches in my league enjoy (multiple Wild Animals on one team.)

Yeah, this was mostly my ramblings at 4am, didnt expect that it would suddenly be the greatest thing.

Is there a list somewhere of the 'starting player/team rules' you used? It would be interesting to see them.

[Mordredd]

The more ppl who talk about it the better chance some sort of (semi-) official consensus can be found.

Sorry to be rude but

This is one of the ones where the more people get involved the longer the list of options being put forward becomes. You're more likely to get a consensus amongst a small group.

80k 0-2 Bestigors 6 3 2 8 Block, Horns GSM (AP)

Is not allowed as a starting player. No player in the game has Block (to start) if they have the ability to perform ST4 Blocks or Blitzes.)

Really? Last I heard it was only if they had actual ST 4. Was I confused?

Also I can't see a 0-2 ST 3, horns, block player being overpowered on a team with 3 wild animals all competing for that blitz action, which is the only time you'll get that ST4-wih-block-skill block.

Is there a list somewhere of the 'starting player/team rules' you used? It would be interesting to see them.

You could look at these. I believe that they're a little out of date as nobody has updated them for LRB5 but they've got the basics.
http://www.midgardbb.com/BloodBowlPlayers.html

[fen]

80k 0-2 Bestigors 6 3 2 8 Block, Horns GSM (AP)

Is not allowed as a starting player. No player in the game has Block (to start) if they have the ability to perform ST4 Blocks or Blitzes.)

Really? Last I heard it was only if they had actual ST 4. Was I confused?

Might well be starting ST4. But lets be honest, if you have a ST3 Player with Block + Horns right off the bat it's going to be pretty damn good. It's like having ST3.5 + Block, and honestly I feel it's better not to take the chance anyway.

Most of what was wanted when I drilled up the team for my two leagues was filling the interest in a high-ish ST team with some ST4 AV8 +Horns players and several Wild Animals on the team. I think I managed that without overpowering them, as right now they're managing to perform behind Chaos, which is where I wanted them. They Blitz a lot harder than Chaos does, and threaten the sideline crowd pushes more. But they also can't go toe to toe with Orcs, Khemri, Nurgle, Chaos or (Chaos) Dwarfs too easily as they lose the war of attrition (They are better at Blitzing than most other teams but they're not so hot once they get dragged into a blocking war.)

I'm definately moving the Bestigors down to MA5 though. I like 5428 Horns. It's really quite cool and different enough from the Chaos Warriors that I feel I can justifiy their existence.

[David Bergkvist]

No player in the game has Block (to start) if they have the ability to perform ST4 Blocks or Blitzes.

The rule is "no ST 4 + block". ST 4 has two important anvantages over horns + ST 3:
1. ST 4 can be used in your opponent's turn. Such attributes and skills are better than things that are used in ones own turns.
2. You don't have to blitz and move one square to use ST 4.

Basically, ST 4 is way, way, much better than horns (which is why players pay 50k for ST 4 (60k according to the formula, but every ST 4 player gets a discount), whereas players only pay 10k for horns). This very large difference between ST 4 and ST 3 + horns means that the rule of "no ST 4 + block" cannot be assumed to extend to "no ST 3 + horns + block".

It's like having ST3.5 + Block, and honestly I feel it's better not to take the chance anyway.

More like ST 3.2 + block.

[Morglum Ironhide]

Err, guys, what about this from the official site:
http://www.specialist-games.com/assets/FO83BBBeasts.pdf

[Bucket-Head]

The specialist game beast team is...

Well, i dont want to say those things in a forum

I´ll say only: Horrible

My team, including the centigor option (firs idea was withotu centigor and with 4 bestigors, pricing them at 110 k))

0-16 Beastmen Lineman: Mov 6 St 3 Agi3 Arm 8- Horns (SG-AMP) 60k

0-4 Ungors Runners: Mov 6 ST 3 Agi 3 Arm 7- Sure Hands (G-AFMP) 60 k

0-2 Bestigors Blitzers: Mov 6, St 3, Agi 3, Arm 9-Horns, Block(SG-AMP) 100k

0-2 Centigors: Mov 6 St 4 Agi 2, Arm 8-Horns, Sure Feet, Sprint, Juggernauth, Wild Animal 130 k

0-1 Minotaur (Like Chaos Dwarves, doubles for mutations acces) 150 k

RR 60 k