Leage Teams by playstyle.

[Smurf]

Not forgetting the coach's spin on a team.

It's fine saying xyz but the problem with forums like these is it can preach 'uniformity' in the 'best' way to play. It is not until someone plays a different style and wins, it then shapes the game.

[mattgslater]

Yeah, but when that happens, the theory behind it pops up in places like this.

[nerdkingdan]

No one is saying you have to play any given way. I've seen a successful dwarf team built on passing, elf team built on bashing... etc...

However... as a standard their is such a thing as playing to your strengths. And despite aversion to it, starting players need guides as to what teams play what way as a standard as a starting point.

I think those who made suggestions on groupings for example have given me a lot to think about, especially about nurgle. I for the most part have played elf teams in a similar manner for a long time.

If I get some time I'll try to put together a revised list.

[Ullis]

I like Sunnyside's categorisation for its straightforwardness. However, Khemri and Nurgle do present a problem in the bash category as someone wanting a bashing team will be sorely disappointed with Khemri even in the medium term.

[MKL]

(...)
However... as a standard their is such a thing as playing to your strengths (...)

To add another twist: I think there are what I call “prevailing tactic” and “reactive tactic” teams.
“Prevailing” are those teams that play chiefly to their strengths: they got a main style, and wins by imposing that game to their opponents. Khemri, for example, need to impose their control tactics to get a good chance to win. Every opponent need some modification, obviously, but the trend is there...*
“Reactive” are those teams that cannot dictate their game style, but need to play by their opponents weakness: the Humans are the most famous example, but I think even Necro are reactive. These are the teams who need to play bash against the agile, and agile against the bash.

*Note: this is not the same as “flexible” or “not flexible”. I think Orcs and Wood Elves are very flexible and adaptable, still they are “prevailing tactic” teams. They are adaptable enough to impose their strengths against most opponents. There are passing Orcs and bashy Elves, still they don't need to radically change their play style to adapt to every different opponent.

[mattgslater]

To add another twist: I think there are what I call “prevailing tactic” and “reactive tactic” teams.

If there were a "like" button under MKL's post, I would be clicking it frantically until I sprained my thumb.

[sunnyside]

I like Sunnyside's categorisation for its straightforwardness. However, Khemri and Nurgle do present a problem in the bash category as someone wanting a bashing team will be sorely disappointed with Khemri even in the medium term.

Well, like I said Khemri are at risk of falling into the low teir catagory. Not that they can't do well. But show me a league winning Khemri team and I'll show you a coach who rolled an 11.

Actually I kinda think that the teams have a taxonomy similar to how we catagorize life forms, a number of the proposals in our posts here might fit together.

i.e.
Prevaling kingdom
->True bash Phylum
--->Control Class
----------->Nurgle Order
----------->Khemri Order

->Agility Phylum

Reactive kingdom
->Hybrid Phylum
->Low Tier Phylum

If you want to extend the analogy Family, genus and species would relate to build and playstyle choices within a team.

Probably overthinking this....

Still though, the bottom line isn't that teams play identically, however some teams play more like some teams than others, and this is a useful teaching tool especially before you've mastered the strategies for every team and when you have to make a lot of decisions while your end of turn clock is ticking or when deciding what skills might be optimal for your local metagame.

[Asperon Thorn]

Probably overthinking this....

+1

Asperon Thorn

[Smeborg]

Sunnyside said: "Still though, the bottom line isn't that teams play identically, however some teams play more like some teams than others..."

To extend this line of thought, it might be useful to identify the teams with "unique" playstyles (and why). For example:

Slann (spam leap)
Vampires (spam H-Gaze and Bloodlust)
Nurgle (spam D-Pres, F-App, plus Tents)
Khemri (highest AG on the team = 2, highest raw ST of any team)
and so on.

Another way of classifying teams is by the way they play on offense and on defense. On offense, do they walk, run, hand-off or pass the ball, and in what proportion? How long do they like to take to score? On defense, are they an active team, hunting down the ball with surgical strikes (Wood Elves, Slann, Pro-Elves, Vampires etc.), or are they a passive, stymie team (Nurgle, Khemri, Orcs).

In general, what is the aspiration of a particular team to win the numbers game, and why (do they like to crush the opposition for a 2-1 grind, or do they need to retain at least parity of numbers for their playstyle to work?). Or do they not care about numbers (win first, die later)?

Just some ideas. I think playstyle could reasonably be made to fit a classification, showing which teams are "unique", and which have common characteristics.

All the best.

[Carnis]

For me, playing nurg as a chaos team with 5 FA, 9 regen & 1 extra AV-point has worked just fine. It's totally playable as a bashteam, claiming it's radically different from chaos is to me, not completely honest. Yea sure it has advantages, but they do not make it any worse at bashing. Also has disadvantages, but they too, do not make it worse at bashing. And chaos too gets ST5 tents after 6 SPP on a mino. Only the mino never loses it's TZ to really stupid.. Talk about control.

[SunDevil]

For me, playing nurg as a chaos team with 5 FA, 9 regen & 1 extra AV-point has worked just fine. It's totally playable as a bashteam, claiming it's radically different from chaos is to me, not completely honest. Yea sure it has advantages, but they do not make it any worse at bashing. Also has disadvantages, but they too, do not make it worse at bashing. And chaos too gets ST5 tents after 6 SPP on a mino. Only the mino never loses it's TZ to really stupid.. Talk about control.

I'd argue Nurgle are worse as a bash team than Chaos. For one, their Warriors are more expensive with less AG and less MV. How do many Chaos Warriors get their first 6 SPPs to gain Block and begin their lives as bashers? 2 TDs. Nurgle Warriors cannot do that anywhere near as well with 2-AG and 4-MV.

And Chaos gets up to 16 Beastmen, all of whom have Horns to bltiz and start earning SPPs, while Nurgle only get 4 Pesties. After that? It's Rotters who are nowhere near the basher/killer player the Beastman can be with their lower MV and Decay.

And every Pesty you try to make into a killer iw one less ballhandler/safety/ballhawk you have. Pesties have to do it all with only 4 of them while Beastmen have a whole crew to diversify.

The Beast is nowhere near the hitter the Minotaur is. Less MV, no Horns, no Frenzy.

In short, I think you're getting poor value out of the Nurgle trying to bash with them. They become more expensive, less effective Chaos that way...and I mean a LOT more expensive and a LOT less effective.

[sunnyside]

To extend this line of thought, it might be useful to identify the teams with "unique" playstyles (and why). For example:

Slann (spam leap)
Vampires (spam H-Gaze and Bloodlust)
Nurgle (spam D-Pres, F-App, plus Tents)
Khemri (highest AG on the team = 2, highest raw ST of any team)
and so on.

Another way of classifying teams is by the way they play on offense and on defense. On offense, do they walk, run, hand-off or pass the ball, and in what proportion? How long do they like to take to score? On defense, are they an active team, hunting down the ball with surgical strikes (Wood Elves, Slann, Pro-Elves, Vampires etc.), or are they a passive, stymie team (Nurgle, Khemri, Orcs).

In general, what is the aspiration of a particular team to win the numbers game, and why (do they like to crush the opposition for a 2-1 grind, or do they need to retain at least parity of numbers for their playstyle to work?). Or do they not care about numbers (win first, die later)?

Just some ideas. I think playstyle could reasonably be made to fit a classification, showing which teams are "unique", and which have common characteristics.

All the best.

I seperate out teams that are differentiated by skills other similarish teams could take. For example any of the elves could spam leap, similarly Chaos could mimic Nurgle in many ways if they wanted to.

Not quite the same of course. But of course every team is unique.

Now Vampires do play fundamentally differently, as nobody else has hypnogaze under normal circumstances, and that skill really does change things on the field(as does bloodlust).

Hence why I cluster those teams as low tier. I acknowledge that all they have in common is being unique and losing.

[Smeborg]

For me, playing nurg as a chaos team with 5 FA, 9 regen & 1 extra AV-point has worked just fine. It's totally playable as a bashteam, claiming it's radically different from chaos is to me, not completely honest. Yea sure it has advantages, but they do not make it any worse at bashing. Also has disadvantages, but they too, do not make it worse at bashing. And chaos too gets ST5 tents after 6 SPP on a mino. Only the mino never loses it's TZ to really stupid.. Talk about control.

Carnis - this is an interesting debate. I would agree that Nurgle are perfectly viable as a bash team. However, I would be inclined to dispute (a) whether Nurgle are better than Chaos at bash, (b) whether Chaos can be built into as good a stymie team as Nurgle, and (c) whether developing Nurgle as a bash team is the Holy Grail for them.

I have seen at least a couple of feared Nurgle bash teams (tabletop), however, I have feared Chaos bash teams more. The starting D-Pres and F-App cannot easily be duplicated by other mutant teams, since it would come at a cost of 20 points of TV, and retarded development. It is perhaps the D-Pres which is the most defining characteristic of Nurgle. For my part, I prefer an Apoth to 9 Regens + Decay on the other players. Regen is a coin toss, it is expensive (20,000 on the Pestigors compared to Beastmen). Igor is weak compared to a Wandering Apoth. My own playing experience is that playing and developing Nurgle in a stymie style works better than a bash style. Have you tried both styles?

Beyond the obvious points of difference between the Chaos and Nurgle teams (MA and AG being notable), I think the biggest single point of differentiation relates to skill acquisition and retention. Rotters do not retain skills (they die), Beastmen do. Nurgle Warriors skill up slowly and with difficulty (cf. Black Orcs), whereas Chaos Warriors lead a charmed life, with both TDs and CAS giving them relatively rapid (and easily planned) skill advancement. Nurgle score fewer TDs than Chaos (they concede fewer, too). This means Nurgle get fewer SPPs per game. Taken all in all, this means that player development on the Nurgle team is (on average) slower and more uneven. This critical difference is what, I believe, makes Nurgle better suited to the stymie game, and Chaos better suited to the bash (I acknowledge that both teams could be developed to play the other game).

Hope that helps.

[sunnyside]

Well, I of course agree that Nurgle development is slower, uneven, and unreliable compared to chaos and many other teams.

However I don't see why that should cause a preference either way regarding bash vs stymie.

[Smeborg]

Well, I of course agree that Nurgle development is slower, uneven, and unreliable compared to chaos and many other teams.

However I don't see why that should cause a preference either way regarding bash vs stymie.

The reason is that you can't develop the Nurgle Warriors into slayers quickly or reliably enough. And you can't make the Rotters into slayers at all (apart from D-Player). Whereas the stymie style seems to be tolerant of slow and uneven skill development. That's what I've found in practice, having tried both systems.

All the best.