Leage Teams by playstyle.

[nerdkingdan]

Hello all I'm looking to group the teams by play type for league play as in what teams play similar in the context of the "competition rules" for league play. The idea here is to group the teams by play-style /development as in what teams for the most part are played best with the same tactics.

My work is not going well, which means for the most part teams are unique, however even with the fact each team is unique, there are some teams that would play somewhat the same.

I was sure undead and necro are such an example.

I know I've been playing since 2nd, but I have not played as constantly or as many games as others on these boards, so I wanted to bow to your experience.

Here is the best I've come up with so far...

Agile Teams
Dark Elf, Wood Elf, Pro Elf, High Elf
These teams for the most part concentrate on scoring using agility. Lots of side-step dodge etc... Each has a unique component, but play similarly.

Stunty Teams
Goblin, Halfling, Ogre
These teams have lots of stunty players and a risky gimmick to win.

Bash Teams
Chaos, Choas Dwarf, Chaos Pact, Nurgle
These teams lack essential skills, however have lots of strength and win by controlling the board and building players to kill the opponent.

Skill Teams
Amazon, Norse
These teams have a basic skill block or dodge on every player, have great skill access on upgrades, but pay for it with 7 AV

Tough Teams
Dwarf, Orc
These teams have high av to not lose players, they also have skills to pick up the ball and knock down opponents. To me these are the best current overall teams for league play. The weakness is low movement.

Goul Teams
Undead, Necro
These teams have 4 fast players, and 2 high strength players, 2 block guys, and Regenerate. These teams seem to have very similar play style with players who handle the ball missing sure hands, with access to it.

Weedy Teams
Underworld, Human, Skaven, Lizardman, Slann.
These team have a 2 strength agile component, 1 large monster, and standard guys that do the bashing using the assists and agility of the 2 strength guys for support. I almost put slann as unique, but leap causes too many turn overs if used frequently and I felt like the 2 ag guys leaping over the line was very much a substitute for the other teams agile players dodging through.

Unique Teams/Couldn't Place
Khemri - This team doesn't seem to fit as it has 2 agility and sure hands, as well as 4 5ST guys, this team seems to play far different than any of the others, you can't play bash cause your 7 AV lack of ball control necessary to force your opponent to risk his players. 2 ag also means you can't play to score. The 4 5st guys without MB to start puts you in a weird control type game unlike the others, though some of you may think its still a bash team.
Vampire - The hypnotic gaze allowing for the equivalent to more than one blitz by removing tackle zones, as well as the disadvantage make it unique.

[Duke Jan]

I think playing bashy with Nurgle is not the way to go. The team relies very much on disrupting your opponents game plan rather than playing the game by your own book. I think to some extend they are similar in that respect to Slann, Norse and wood elves on defense, they all have players (Leap/Frenzy) that force the offence to adapt their game plan to the opponent more than they would against normal (read human/orc) opponents.

[voyagers_uk]

I agree with Jan. Your categories are restrictive. (or maybe it is your definitions)


Bash & Grind

Exploitative

Desperate

Ball skills

they would work with wider definitions

I would put Nurgle under Exploitative with Dark Elves.

[Ullis]

How about giving each team a score on some categories. For instance:

Killing power (ability to clear opponents off the pitch)
Staying power (how fast you lose players yourself within a match. In league context this also tells how SPP retention works in the team)
Speed and ball control skills (high movement, high Ag and skills would give marks here)
Development speed (how fast and how widely does the team generate SPP's)
Development potential (how much do new skills help the team)

Scores could go from 1-3 or 1-5. I don't know if this covers all necessary aspects. Some examples with the 1-3 scale:

Pro elves 11332
Dark elves 12332
Khemri 32113
Humans 22231
Orcs 33222
Slann 12333
Chaos 32123
Halflings 21121
Skaven 21332
Norse 31222

Going with this, maybe a 1-5 score would work better to make the comparison easier. Adding a short descriptive sentence after that statline could round it off.

Those numbers miss the "positioning" aspect that seems very important to Khemri and Nurgle teams.

[Ulthuan_Express]

Those numbers miss the "positioning" aspect that seems very important to Khemri and Nurgle teams.

A 'perceived difficulty' score may help here, too, as some teams are simply harder to use, and more of a challenge, than others.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Agile Teams
Dark Elf, Wood Elf, Pro Elf, High Elf, Skaven, Vampire, Slann, Underworld

Bash Teams
Chaos, Chaos Dwarf, Chaos Pact, Nurgle, Amazon, Norse, Dwarf, Orc, Undead, Khemri,
Necro, Human, Lizardmen

Stunty Teams
Goblin, Halfling, Ogre

[Arklite]

humans... weedy?

if anything humans are an all trades team. thats their niche as it were O_o

they're fast, fairly agile and fairly bashy and if i was to give them any description at all it would be voyager's "exploitive" title. humans are the masters of flop-ball after all. they might not do things better than everyone else but they can damn sure do everything you can't do better. of course i'm of the opinion that humans are an easy to learn difficult to master affair in the long run. playing to an opponents weakness is a fair bit more difficult than playing to your team's strengths.

they're an odd ball team on the whole, just enough of everything to be silver at everything but in no way gold (though one could argue that humans are stupid fast)

[mattgslater]

Unless you're breaking down along very broad lines, I don't like this thinking. I think it might be better to come up with a comprehensive table of the things that are important, and try to group teams only after analyzing that table. Unless you're that guy who's run all 24 team races in a full season (I know I'm not close to that). Even then, reasonable opinions may differ.

[nerdkingdan]

Well each team is unique in its own way.

My hope was to divide them in groups by similar tactics, and make 1 team from each group to have the most variety of game play. In the long run I'll likely make every team, but it was to give me a place to start, as well as give others new to the game a broad definition as to what teams play what way.

Scoring them by stats was something I tried. However what I'm looking for is grouping them by what plays alike.

You have to agree that there just isn't enough variety in the mechanics for 24 teams to be completely different in game play. Yes its a broad comparison as there are differences. But lets say you join a league that lets you play 2 teams. Your going to get the most variety in game play if 1 team is Khemri and the other is Wood Elf, You might also find yourself bored if you played say Necro and Undead in the same league due to their similarities.

[mattgslater]

I don't agree with that at all. I haven't played all 24 teams, but I've got marked differences in my playstyle with what look like very similar teams. I really do think that, while you can talk of common characteristics and a speed/bash spectrum, it's usually a mistake to try to say, "these guys? Oh, they're like those guys" for any two BB team races. "They have this in common with those guys," or "they are more like those guys than those other guys," that works. But drawing additional comparisons off of common features, I'm not really with you.

For example, there's this group of teams that wins off of +ST matchups: Orcs, Khemri, Nurgle, Chaos, Chaos Pact, and to a lesser extent, Chaos Dwarfs, Norse and Undead. But no two of those teams do it the same way; each has something that makes it very distinct from the others, and tends to confuse coaches going from one team to the next.

[Dzerards]

And where do you put Lizardmen who start of as an agile bashy team and develop into a bashy agiliy team?

[Asperon Thorn]

I don't agree with that at all. I haven't played all 24 teams, but I've got marked differences in my playstyle with what look like very similar teams. I really do think that, while you can talk of common characteristics and a speed/bash spectrum, it's usually a mistake to try to say, "these guys? Oh, they're like those guys" for any two BB team races. "They have this in common with those guys," or "they are more like those guys than those other guys," that works. But drawing additional comparisons off of common features, I'm not really with you.

Not to mention the differences in just developing the same team. . .

A Chaos team that has spammed Claw with block, mighty blow, and guard. Plays very differently than a guy that has elected into getting Big Hand, very long legs, Extra Arms and heads. . .That second chaos team can really play the ball game rather than the first one that plays to annihilate first ball second.

And there are already several discussions on the different ways to play Dark Elves. My own is a much more "in-your-face" than a lot of other people's.

Asperon Thorn

[sunnyside]

I think, in general, when thinking of teams in a tournament setting you need to look over all the way to the right side of the stat line. On game one those are just silly letters, but in the long run their importance will make you GASP.

I think I divide the teams, at first stroke, this way.

First, I divide out the low tier teams. Their common demoninator is losing, but special possibilities and characteristics comes second. As always I give the blood bowl dev props for putting stuff like this into their game. Most play uniquely.
Vampire, Ogre, Lings, Gobbos (If you're using extra teams, I might put underworld here, but the extra teams don't fit as well as the ones in the rulebooks into these groups).

Bash teams: I mean real bash teams. characterized by having, except for the occasional lone gobbo or something, no agility positionals. They also happen to lack agility 4, and don't expect to find much in the way of speed either.
Chaos, Orc, Dwarf, Nurgle, khemri, chaos dwarf (I might put Pact here as well, but again they don't fit as well).

Agility teams
AG4 and with agility access is what sets these teams apart. As you gain experience in bloodbowl you quickly learn that a 3+ with a re-roll is NOT a sure thing, and while there are skills that make players act for various things as if they had AG4, it really isn't the same. So these teams execute an array of plays in a fundamentally different manner.
All the elves and Skaven (Slann fit pretty well here)

Hybrid teams
Like humans, these teams are supposed to play a hybrid game between sometimes being agility and sometimes bash. They're characterized by having both strength and agility positionals, but no AG4. I find that some of these teams are the best for new players. However they lose a lot of shine as the game progresses. They simply can simply come up short in bashing against some of the better bash teams, and with AG3 they can't dodge away like the agility races. That ag3 is particularily telling on Amazons, where a lot of games I'm just patiently toying with them, waiting for them to turnover on a dodge.
Human, Amazon, Norse, Necro, Undead, Lizardmen.

Interestingly if you decide to dis on Khemri and their AG2 positionals and AV7 linemen and put them into the low tier bracket it divides the groups evenly into 6 each.

In any case Norse are NOT a "skill team", at least not for having block. For one thing Dwaves have just as freakin' much. For another most teams have nearly as much at higher TVs.

[voyagers_uk]

Sounds much like my own aggressive press Dark elf approach AT

[SunDevil]

I'd advocate for a "Control" group - meaning teams that specialize in board control, denying their opponent's efforts, even if this means NOT causing lots of casualties.

Nurgle and Khemri.

Nurgle don't bash. They can be forced into that role but will do so poorly, especially compared to their cousins of Chaos. Wanna bash? Play Chaos. Nurgle thrive by screwing up their opponent's passing (Disturbing Presense), hitting (Foul Appearance) and Dodging (Tentacles). And those are just the STARTING skills!

Most teams succeed by insuring their own dice roll well. Look at all the reroll skills. Or teams relying on 4-AG (easier rolls) or 4-ST (easier to get two die blocks which result in easier skill). What other team besides Nurgle relies on, literally, making their opponent's dice fail?

Sure, Nurgle get some ST players but their role is not to cause injury, which is the way bash teams get value out of high ST. Nurgle use that ST simply to prevent their opponent's from going where they want. Again, this is Nurgle messing with their opponent's efforts moreso than insuring their own succeed.

So anyway, Nurgle = Control team.

I'd argue for Khemri's inclusion in this category as well. Their across-the-board slow movement and 4 5-ST players just screams bash. However, they lack something the other pure bash teams - Orcs, Dwarves, Chaos (if played that way), etc. - have and that's 3-AG or 'standard' AG. This allows those teams to gain potential TDs off of TOs caused by casualties. Khemri have the worst AG in the game (thematically perfect!) which means that many TOs they cause, if any, end up simply being a bunch of Skell and Mummies standing around the ball on the ground. For most halves in which they kick, the Khemri are happy to simply get in the way of their opponent and prevent the TD with no though of turning the ball over and scoring. Control is the emphasis of Khemri and I think that places them with Nurgle.

Of course, this could all just be the result of me playing them both in different leagues right now and, while they do it slightly differently (Nurgle with their denial skills, Khemri with lots of MiB/Guard to increase the # of stuns and KOs I get), both teams play 1-0 or 2-1 control grinds without reliably expecting a ton of casualties like bash teams.