"Ok then, Blood Bowl nerds: Best team,?" Topic

Alright, gang… while I have some attention.

What about the best team in Blood Bowl? I suspect this will be a more difficult item to reach consensus on. Statistically, Chaos teams seem to win a large percentage of the major tournaments, and in many leagues, but I don't think my experience with and against them seems to carry that through. They seem to me to be a difficult team to win with. In their defense, I've only actually played with a Chaos team a handful of times, compared to others.

The Wood Elfs/Elves would seem to be another favorite, as they can really do a lot of pitch dominating, but they are also quite fragile, and can get smashed to bits good and proper.

I think my current vote, then, would go for Orcs. They seem to be the best all around playing team in the game, at the moment. I have never actually played -with- an Orc team, but my games watching them, and against them, have shown them to be a very good "all comers" kind of roster, and that's across multiple versions of the game.

-A.

Vampires, but I don't play that often – the undead can do a horrific number on most teams.

They had a vote on this on the Three Die Block podcast- Skaven, then Woodies, I think.

Well-developed Chaos can be good, but early on they haven't got as much going for them as you may think.

Vampires- no. Undead- maybe.

Woodies run on rails though, the starting line up of any Wood Elf team is pretty obvious.

I think from a standing start Orcs are pretty good. But medium term in a league comp, you can't go past woodies or rats. Long term it's really a question of how good your opponents are.

Depends. In a one-off game, go for the speed like the Wood Elves or Skaven. In a league, where you can build up players, tougher teams become more useful, as the speedy guys are fragile and prone to injury. After a while the fragile teams are worn down, while the tougher teams develop more skills and eventually can dominate. In fact, at the start of a league you don't go for the win on the Wood Elves, you go for the kills. After a couple of games they have the wins and no players left.

I've seen some sick undead teams which were designed to kill or maim the other team, and they only got better at it as the league went on. OTOH, my lizards would beat those teams, as my heavy guys could take it while my skinks could run circles around them. I recall several game where the undead were beating my guys up left and right, but once I got the ball to a skink they couldn't catch him and I'd get the win. Have to play a lizard or two down for a game while my dudes recovered, though, so I'd hope the next game would be against a slow team that didn't specialize in carnage, or a fast but fragile team so I could inflict carnage. I like having a mix of talent, whether it's star players to fill a hole in your skill set or a team with contrasts like lizard saurus/kroxi/skink--you're not as specialized.

Much depends on your opposition, though. Good players with bad teams can do better than bad players with good teams.

I've had my best league success with Orcs, followed (under the old, playable rules) by Halflings. For one-off, Skaven or Wood Elf speed is probably better, although Dwarven blocking skills and armor might let you win in the second half as well – depends on how the injury rolls go.

Not the halflings… I get beat every-time!

I've always liked Skaven for the ariel attack.

I like the norse team for a ground pounding team in league play.

AMAZONS!

Everybody has dodge (stronger than halflings or goblins), and their blitzers dodge + block skills (cheap WE wardancers!).

Add a pretty versatile team (They're humans after all) and you have a winner team.

The only drawbacks are the AWFUL GW miniatures (But I use a shadowforge bunny team) and all kind of dwarves, because they negate their dodge skill.

Best wishes.

I swear by Dwarves if I'm playing in a campaign. Starting out with Block and Tackle and good armor will keeps the guys up and running for a long time. I skip the Slayers and Blitzers. Instead I just take Linemen and two Runners.

I'd take Skaven or Wood Elves for a one-off game since they can zoom around the board.

Humans and Orcs are solid and somewhat forgiving and flexible.

For one-off games, speed is more important. Injuries really don't matter that much.

But for a campaign, then it's hardy teams over nimble any day of the week. In a 10 team league, we played each other once, then the top four went to the playoffs. In 9 games, my undead team killed 9 opponents (most in the league). But other hard hitting teams would kill every other game on average. By around week 7 of 9, nimble but fragile teams like skaven and elves couldn't field a full team. When you need to take your proceeds and buy a new unskilled team member, you are falling behind.

My undead faced off in the super bowl against a human team (with TWO griff Oberwalds, and a vampire as his star players). I kept myself to a single star, as I am not fond of "stars" in general. But he was the exception. The other pair to make it to the playoffs were an Orc and Chaos team with the Dwarfs just missing out because of our tie-breaker rules. All the finesse teams did well in their early games, but the injuries and dead that needed to be replaced caught up with them by mid season.

Not saying that a finesse team can't do well, and sure, it matters who you play against, and how many games they had played (that was my very first gaming of BB, so I was certainly no expert at the game, but a pretty good player of wargames in general). But it's more work and you need more luck to pull off finesse team wins in a league where lots of games will get played. The odds are against you. Injuries and deaths will chip away at your team.

Dwarves are always my team of choice, bring on the pain!!!!

For a new player I would say Dwarves are by far and away the best team for a newbie to get to grips with the game mechanics – solid and reliable, they rarely let you down.

For an experienced player, I think Chaos as a starting team is a challenge – the potential for greatness is there but has to be carefully nourished

But for sheer way out wackiness, unpredictability and generally off the wall Blood Bowl goodness it has to be Goblins