Tourney Chaos Team - Suggestions?

[fen]

3x CW w/Block (W)
1x CW w/Guard (w)
2x BM w/Block (B)
2x BM w/Guard (b)
1x BM w/Extra Arms (X)
1x BM w/Sure Hands (S)
1x Mino w/Juggy (M)
2x RR

I quite like this, except I'd probably switch all of the Chaos Warriors (Or at least 3 of them) into Guard players and let my Beastmen do the Blocking work.

3 CW + Guard
1 CW + Block
Same Beastmen
Minotaur - Juggy or Claw (Claw + MB stacked is very mean - he'll help a lot in dealing with teams that have Mummies, Big Guys or Dwarfs/Orcs - with Claw he's better at Blocking than the Juggy minotaur, but worse at Blitzing.)

I certainly agree with the Extra Arms + Sure Hands beastmen - I think you should almost always use the Sure Hands beastman to collect - as handing off to the Extra Arms BM is a major threat. The exception is when that 2+ Pick up is essential (and you have a reroll to back it up).

[mattgslater]

3x CW w/Block (W)
1x CW w/Guard (w)
2x BM w/Block (B)
2x BM w/Guard (b)
1x BM w/Extra Arms (X)
1x BM w/Sure Hands (S)
1x Mino w/Juggy (M)
2x RR

Oops. I forgot to put in the diagram.

Code: Select all

---- Line of scrimmage ----
- - - -|- - W w W - -|- - - -
- B - -|W b - - - b M|- - B -
- X - -|- - - - - - -|- - S -

Having two guys where B and X are means that your opponent has to run to the inside where you're stronger.

I like Fen's Claw suggestion. If you're going to mostly set up blocks for BMs with CWs, you might want put a BM with block on the line at nose sandwiched between CWs with Guard, using CWs with Stand Firm to hold the square next to the wide zone to keep a hole from opening. On offense, you can use a Mino on the line; on defense, you'll want him back where he can blitz and can't easily be taken down. Because Minos want to blitz anyway and can't use TRRs, Juggernaut is a natural selection; however I totally see the point about Claw. A Mino with Claw is just great.

[Duke Jan]

OK, a few suggestions:

Take Mighty Blow instead of Claw, it's a lot more effective against all opponents. Especially against high AG teams which will be the difficult opponents. Your beastmen have AV8. Not much, but with mighty blow you should tip the scales sufficiently to allow an 11 player roster.

Don't take block on chaos warriors. They are strength 4, AG3 and can move up to 7 (with GFIs). Use them to block gaps in the opponents soft spots, don't stick them against black orcs or few other stronger players.

Strip ball is a necessity, but so are other skills.

You can take guard but you should not overdo it. You can't win blocking wars against traditional guard teams anyway and against other teams you only need one, guard player, two at most.

On doubles I found JumpUp on a chaos warrior very effective.
Last of all: 3 re-rolls is not enough in a tournament setting you need at least 4, even with starting skills.

Most important is don't be scared of more risky actions while you can spend a re-roll. Once the re-roll for the turn is gone, play sensible. Sounds easier than it is

And for whoevers sake, don't put 3 of your chaos warriors on the LOS. Keep at least 2 free to move where you want them. If they start on the LOS they will stay there, a waste of strength.

[PianoDan]

Strip ball is a necessity, but so are other skills.

I'm not sure about this, I think that over 75% of the teams there will take sure hands on at least one player. i think tackle would be a better investment.

[mattgslater]

OK, a few suggestions:

Take Mighty Blow instead of Claw, it's a lot more effective against all opponents. Especially against high AG teams which will be the difficult opponents. Your beastmen have AV8. Not much, but with mighty blow you should tip the scales sufficiently to allow an 11 player roster.

I agree with Duke Jan here that MB is better than Claw. However, if you're only allowed to get one skill on any given player, don't get any of either on anybody (except your mino, if you take one -- he's already got MB, making Claw worthwhile). Focus on skills that move the game forward and keep your turn from ending.

Don't take block on chaos warriors. They are strength 4, AG3 and can move up to 7 (with GFIs). Use them to block gaps in the opponents soft spots, don't stick them against black orcs or few other stronger players.

I actually think Block on CWs is a good thing; they essentially add to your numbers if you can use them to stick in on a ST3 player, and if you can force them into your opponent's non-Block players, you can get good mismatches out of it. CWs are great because they can deny an opponent real estate. I like the Jump Up idea (I've said it before, but I think Side Step is really trick with these guys; they can always position themselves where if they need a 3+ dodge will do, they can keep the opponent from setting up chain-blocks, and they can use their bodies to deny passage to the opponent by making sure they get pushed so as to force a dodge. Guard is a good skill for CWs as they're hard to knock down.

Strip ball is a necessity, but so are other skills.

Strip ball is a fine skill. On a team like this, with no starting skills (yeah, yeah, Horns... you know what I mean) and a limit of one skill per player, my only advice is "don't do it."

You can take guard but you should not overdo it. You can't win blocking wars against traditional guard teams anyway and against other teams you only need one, guard player, two at most.

I more-or-less agree. Somewhere around 2 or 3 players (depending on your defensive style), Guard tends to reach a point of diminishing returns. If you run a 4-3 or an Okie defense (5 on the line), you want two Guard guys for sure (maybe even 3 if you're feeling Soonerish), but the only time you'd do that was against a high-agility team to force them to the wings. Most Blood Bowl defenses are 3-4 in structure, and in that case, you want one nose tackle with Guard and maybe two assist-linebackers with Guard (the latter should be Beastmen flanking the Warrior you want to use to soak up the blitz; the former can be either).

On doubles I found JumpUp on a chaos warrior very effective.
Last of all: 3 re-rolls is not enough in a tournament setting you need at least 4, even with starting skills.

I see the Jump Up thing. I totally disagree about re-rolls. If 3 isn't enough, you aren't prioritizing right, or you're taking too many risks. I can make Orcs work on one re-roll if I have to; I wouldn't do that with Chaos, but you certainly don't need 4, IMO. I guess it depends on your play style.

Most important is don't be scared of more risky actions while you can spend a re-roll. Once the re-roll for the turn is gone, play sensible. Sounds easier than it is

Play sensible, with or without a re-roll, and you can buy more positionals with the money you didn't need for re-rolls. Re-rolls have a way of failing at the worst time when you rely on them too much. Besides, the fewer re-rolls you have, the better the players you can afford, and the better the players you have, the fewer re-rolls you need.

And for whoevers sake, don't put 3 of your chaos warriors on the LOS. Keep at least 2 free to move where you want them. If they start on the LOS they will stay there, a waste of strength.

I agree you want two ST4+ players out where you can use them, at least. If you can afford 5 ST4+ players, that frees you up to put whatever you like on the line (against Khemri, use Beastmen, while against High Elves, Warriors will continually vex your opponent if properly supported). Keep looking for mismatches; against light teams this means putting your CWs on the line and forcing the opponent to bunch up to get through them, while against heavy teams, this means using them to reinforce your backfield to force your opponent to cage up in his own half, where you can score quickly on a recovery.

[PianoDan]

3x CW w/Block (W)
1x CW w/Guard (w)
2x BM w/Block (B)
2x BM w/Guard (b)
1x BM w/Extra Arms (X)
1x BM w/Sure Hands (S)
1x Mino w/Juggy (M)
2x RR

I quite like this, except I'd probably switch all of the Chaos Warriors (Or at least 3 of them) into Guard players and let my Beastmen do the Blocking work.

3 CW + Guard
1 CW + Block
Same Beastmen
.

Neither of you guys suggest tackle... Why is this? Elves, Zons and Ghouls will be a real pain without tackle

[fen]

Cause when you're only allowed one skill per guy - you're screwed as Chaos.

I tend to just use 2 or 3 dice Blocks to deal with Dodge players when I play Chaos - as I can't stand having Tackle without Block. It's like having a skill-less player in many matches and if they have Dodge without block they're not a problem because you can hit them with a block player for the same odds. So it's Blodge players that are the issue, imo smacking them with a Tackle guy who has no other skills gives you the same odds per dice of being knocked down as they are.

In otherwords - I wouldn't take Chaos to a tournament - Even when semi-developed they get spanked by Elves and Amazons - but I have beaten them with nothing but Block and Guard players.

It's pretty easy to put a Tackle player in if you want it - just swap a single beastman's skills. You can't really afford more than one Tackle player, but expect him to get singled out and dealt with.

This is the annoying thing about the Chaos team - if they just had a pair of Blitzer types then you could have Block + Tackle players and Tackle would be a no brainer. But instead... *sigh* you just have a very poorly designed team that's fun but not competitive in low TV.

[DoubleSkulls]

You can take guard but you should not overdo it. You can't win blocking wars against traditional guard teams anyway and against other teams you only need one, guard player, two at most.

I more-or-less agree. Somewhere around 2 or 3 players (depending on your defensive style), Guard tends to reach a point of diminishing returns. If you run a 4-3 or an Okie defense (5 on the line), you want two Guard guys for sure (maybe even 3 if you're feeling Soonerish), but the only time you'd do that was against a high-agility team to force them to the wings. Most Blood Bowl defenses are 3-4 in structure, and in that case, you want one nose tackle with Guard and maybe two assist-linebackers with Guard (the latter should be Beastmen flanking the Warrior you want to use to soak up the blitz; the former can be either).

I don't really agree with this. Guard doesn't suffer from diminishing returns anything like as quickly as most other skills. More guard makes it even harder for your opponent to win a blocking war. In this tourney you could field a 'zon team with 12 players all with guard. That would be horrendous to play against.

[Duke Jan]

If you want to avoid needing 9 turns to score or being dependent on last turn passing or GFIs, you're going to need 4 re-rolls in a tournament. You need one for every critical 3+ roll. If you want to score, 3 such rolls leaves you no margin for errors. At some point in the game you will need to increase the pace of the game and that is where you need the re-rolls.

I don't agree on the deminishing returns argument either. It's just that with chaos there are other priorities, especially since you get plenty of 2die blocks anyway.

[mattgslater]

I think what I was saying about diminishing returns on Guard is with respect to the perameters of Chaos team design within the exercise. On a Chaos team, everybody who has Guard and no other improvements can't have Block (or Sure Hands or Tackle or whatever). Chaos has a bit of an edge on most teams in raw ST, so Guard becomes ever-so-slightly less important, and when combined with its very high opportunity cost, giving a ton of Guard to this team under these circumstances doesn't sound smart to me (some, yes; a lot, no).

A guy with Sure Hands saves you a re-roll counter on average, for a lot less money. A guy or two with Extra Arms can make one re-roll feel like two. For the price of one re-roll, you can have a Sure Hands guy and two Extra Arms guys, more than enough to justify the lost re-roll. As for whether 4 is necessary or not, I think the only credible authority is your play style. I usually find that if I start with 3 re-rolls on a team with a couple Block guys and a Sure Hands guy, I have one left over half the time. Yeah, on 2 re-rolls, sometimes my later turns end prematurely, but if you can't deal with that, you'll lose a lot no matter how many re-rolls you have. I have friends who always buy 3 or 4 re-rolls and win a lot of games with them. Chaos do need RRs worse than most teams; to me, that's an excuse to take as many as you would for a Human or Orc team (2 or 3, depending on your tolerance for playing without a net), then to upgrade a guy with Leader.

[mattgslater]

You should talk to the tournament coordinator about the balance issues of the format. Some suggestions:

A) no more than 250k on improvements (so you can't buy 12 Amazons with Guard -- yeah, that's pretty wrong);
B) allow two normal skills on a player at an increased cost (say 50k, or 10k more than the TV add);
C) no more than, say, 4 doubles or second skills, and no more than one on any position except basic linos.

[Richy]

I've taken chaos to a few tournaments and I'd strongly advise that you take tackle on a beastman - it's generally one of the first skills I take.

At high TR tournaments you're likely to see a lot of blodge - elves and amazons in particular. The front loading skill system means that a lot of teams will be playing with blodgers from the outset, meaning you'll get value from tackle. With horns you should be able to get 2-dice blocks, giving your tackler a better than 50-50 chance of taking down a blodger. The passive use of tackle (no dodge reroll when dodging away) can also be very useful, particularly against AG3 dodgers. Without a tackler I find chaos really struggle against blodge heavy teams - even one tackler can make a huge difference.

It's true that your tackler may get targetted, but you're much better off with one than without.

[mattgslater]

I've taken chaos to a few tournaments and I'd strongly advise that you take tackle on a beastman - it's generally one of the first skills I take.

At high TR tournaments you're likely to see a lot of blodge - elves and amazons in particular. The front loading skill system means that a lot of teams will be playing with blodgers from the outset, meaning you'll get value from tackle. With horns you should be able to get 2-dice blocks, giving your tackler a better than 50-50 chance of taking down a blodger. The passive use of tackle (no dodge reroll when dodging away) can also be very useful, particularly against AG3 dodgers. Without a tackler I find chaos really struggle against blodge heavy teams - even one tackler can make a huge difference.

It's true that your tackler may get targetted, but you're much better off with one than without.

Good point about the league format. In not recommending Tackle, I was thinking about straight-Dodge players, for whom Tackle is kind of like Block, but Blodgers are different, and against them Tackle is the only skill that matters. You might even want 2 in that case... a Tackle BM (to blitz with) and a Tackle CW to make it harder to push your Tackle guy away? Hmmm... Not sure. Chaos in a format like this is a challenge.

[Da_Great_MC]

I believe Frenzy is only slightly worse vs blodgers (compared to Tackle), but it has so much other situations in which it shines.

So I'd still take Frenzy over Tackle.

[DoubleSkulls]

Frenzy is nearly as good - but the downside to frenzy is that you have that 2nd block to worry about. This can restrict your ability to hit the players you want.