Alternative Team Rosters

I’ve been trying to make a Beastmen roster for a while, and tried fitting in the Star Player minotaur, but it’s really difficult with his cost. And there’s no Beastman star players! So, I was looking at homebrew rosters like the Secret League, but I don’t think the game needs new teams, we’ve got 25 perfectly viable teams already. What would be better is a way to play alternative rosters, where positionals are switched around to make for more unique builds.

Dark Elf Alternative Roster—Witch Cult

Lose Blitzers.

Witch Elves become 0-4 and gain the Juggernaut skill.

Rerolls increase to 60k.

Chaos Chosen Alternative Roster—Beastmen

Lose Chosen Blockers.

Minotaurs become 0-2 and lose Loner.

Beastman Runners gain Passing access.

Rerolls decrease to 50k.

Skaven Alternative Roster—Clan Eshin

Lose Rat Ogre.

Lose Blitzers.

Gutter Runner become 0-6 and gain the Stab skill.

Rerolls increase to 70k

Goblin Alternative Roster—Goblin Cheaters

Lose Trolls.

All Goblin positionals are 0-2.

Gain 3 Bribes free.

Edit: Changed the rosters a bit. The real goal isn’t to get people onboard with these, but the idea of adding optional rosters like this to the existing team.

Posted Dec 20, 2018, 11:52 PM UTC · edited

1016
christianhashbrownOrc•

I like the dark elf idea. Some revamped assassins could help fill the team out. Right now they're not really taken, but I think giving them av8 and sidestep instead of shadowing would make them a much better player and without the blitzers you'll need some av8 to screen with, these guys will get you to the blodgestep screen faster and you'll be able to afford them since you are only paying for 4 witches, even if they went up in price to pay for the armor. That would be a fun team to play..

Only problem is the strength access on an elf team would definitely make them OP, the witches would need to lose agility access or something and even then it might not be balanced enough since they have dodge. Maybe they lose normals access since they're so hopped up on blood and crazy magic.

3
PlotHookOP•

Yeah, they’d become pretty strong. Basically, the team has access to mighty blow and guard. I don’t know what else they’d take.

2
Ianassa•

I would keep rerolls at 50k (consistent with all elves), change the linos to av7 and 60k (identical to pro elves), and take away that strenght access. Noe the team would be av7 across (fits the theme), they're arguably worst elves in the game (homebrew teams should be behind in the power scale) but you get them sweet 4 witch elves.

2
christianhashbrownOrc•

That's definitely balanced but like you said its pretty weak. I think 4 blitzers and 2 witches is much better than just 4 witches so maybe up their total to 6

1
ketilkn•

Instead of losing wild animal, minotaurs could lose mutations on normal and be a bit cheaper.

2
Jiitunary•

I don't know if I like the idea on giving up blitzers on skaven. I dont care about block, it's guard I need early on as skaven

1
PlotHookOP•

Guard doesn’t help stab, and now you’ve got 6 of them.

1
TheLord-CommanderWood Elf•

Oh wow, I really want that Dark Elf team, I'd love to have an elf team with strength access. Sounds like a lot of fun.

1
ketilkn•

I think Withergrasp Doubledrool is a mutated beastman.

No horns. Eh, who knows?

1
KejirageNecromantic•

Yeah these are all pretty broken, or for the Eshin just awful.

Darkies, 4 agility 4 pieces with natural Str access, you'll still be giving linemen Guard on doubles, so can now build either Killers with Pomb, or mega surfers with Leap and Juggs, natural Str access and agility 4 have no place on the same piece without a huge draw back (see Vampires)

Beastmen, a Mino and Beastmen is already an entirely viable option, but removing Wild animal from the Minos doesn't make any sense, maybe they'd lose loner as there's two of them, but they're still gigantic angry cows, they're not gonna chill out cause their mates in tin cans aren't about.

Clan stab stuff, there's already a decent secret league Eshin team, or maybe it's a Stuunty roster, but it's out there. Stab is a crap skill, you have to base up to use it, and can't keep moving after Blitzing. So now against any high av team you're based with Str2 Av7 dudes, soon to be dead dudes...

Gobbos, I mean they're Gobbos, you've taken away the threat of MB and a 1turn touchdown capability and introduced more self harming randomness, yey?

1
dreamifiElf•

I think the witch cult could be a balanced team if you remove the strength access. Strength access on an agility piece kind of breaks the rules of blood bowl, and getting 4 witches is already really good without that.

1
JimmyWolf87•

I think the Khainite Dark Elves would be a fun idea though natural ST access elves are a bit too much as others have mentioned. I've considered;

Upping the Witch Elves to 0-4 but otherwise leave them.

Replace Blitzers with:

0-2 Executioners 110 GC

M6 S3 AG4 AV9 Block, Mighty Blow. (Same Skill Access as Blitzers).

All Linesmen (Cultists) reduced to AV7 and 60K GC (Same as Elven Union Linesmen).

Makes the team much more of a glass cannon in terms of bashing (which makes sense) but relatively poor passing wise (as much as elves ever are). Gives some good positional 'control' with the sheer amount of frenzy but obviously that's a huge gamble. Executioners are formidable but need basing/positioning well to make use from them.

Fluff wise; Mighty Blow on the Execs represents their training for the 'perfect' block with a single blow. AV7 Linesmen as they're more cultists.

Problem I can see is that there really would be only 1 viable starting roster (unless you went mental and added an assassin although they could need a buff/change anyway).

1
Alien_BHL•

Witch Cult sounds nice. Probably less powerful than normal dark elves in the beginning, and certainly more elf-y.

Chaos Chosen looks really strong, maybe too much. I feel like trading Chosen from better Minotaurs and passing beastmen and cheap rerolls maybe be too much for long term development.

Skaven without Blitzers and Rat Ogre wouldn't change their general strategy that much on my opinion. The main difference would be in defense since you can't break cages - instead you'll probably try to steal the ball with gutter runners with stab (something you'd already do with developped gutter runners with strip ball/two heads/wrestle... anyway). Seems very strong too. The Gutter Runners are the true strength of the Skaven, more than the synergies between players. So I'm inclined to think that any alternative Skaven team should be build upon a different basis. For example, the FUMBBL secret league teams has Clan Pestilence built around Foul Appearance/Disturbing Presence, without Gutter Runners, some Frenzy and a Ball&Chain. Well they are more an entirely different team at this point... probably a bad example... but imagine a skaven team built around frenzy for example, without Gutter Runners but more bash skills.

Goblins without Trolls but more secret weapons... Well I don't know. It's like goblins that are even more goblins. It's not bad, but it doesn't sound very alternative.

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Maybe I'm just not a fan of alternative teams that are too similar in playstyle to their "base" team.

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1
SpikesNLead•

Can't say any of those rosters appeal to me although I do like the concept of slight variations on rosters.

I always thought it would be fun to have say a dwarf team where the runners maybe become throwers, trading a point of movement for Pass, and the blitzers lose Block and gain Catch. This is mostly inspired by the 2nd edition chorfs that I use as a proxy for standard dwarfs. There are thrower models that I use as runners because they have P access, and the chorf catchers become the blitzers because whilst a blitzer isn't a good fit for a catcher model, the blitzer is still faster and more agile than a regular dwarf.

For an all beastman roster, I'd possibly give them a couple of throwers, just basically a standard beastman with Pass and P access and 0-2 regular minotaurs with Loner. Taking loner off a big guy is not a step to be taken lightly.

For dark elves, I think it would still be balanced if you allow for 0-4 witches and 0-2 blitzers so you basically replace a couple of blitzers with witches.

1
SpikesNLead•

Skaven you could have a couple of variations, e.g. a warlord clan team where you lose all the gutters runners but get 0 - 4 blitzers. Maybe make rogres 0 -2 although that might be too powerful.

Not sure what a skaven assassin player should look like stats wise but an assassin team where all grunners get replaced by assassins with stab could be interesting too.

1
20000DethsNecromantic•

Optional variations on team rosters would be cool, but a lot of the secret league teams are basically that.

1
BloodBowlBaller•

It took so long to get the vanilla rosters balanced, like 3 decades now... How many centuries will it be before Secret League teams are balanced?

1