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I haven't ever played the game. I think by the time I actually got the box at launch, I was burned out on painting. So, I put it aside until really no one at my local GW played anymore. Well, now there's a league starting around my area, and I'm considering joining it. I have the original 12 Humans painted and have six more than I ordered (an extra sprue of them from the original box) shortly after I got the game so that I'd have more players if some got injured.

I already have the Humans and the Orcs... Humans mostly painted. But, since it launched a couple of years ago, there have been a ton of teams that have been released. Some of them were short run metal rereleases from the original game while several are plastic molds of new teams. But, I'm torn on which team to play. Being a Nurgle fan, I was a huge fan of Duncan's Nurgle conversion team that he made. Now, there's a dedicated Nurgle Team. But, being a beginner, I hear they are tough to play.

So, what's your favorite team? What have you found to be easiest to start with? Which team have you settled on? Which teams do you have the most fun with regardless of how difficult they may be to play? When you were just starting out, what pitfalls did you fall into? What, in your opinion are the better teams for beginners? Should I buy what I want regardless of how difficult they are to play or just stick to something more simple for this league and maybe move to a more advanced team next time?

Thanks in advance!

SG

I think the Doom Lords are pretty good beginner team. Their roles are pretty clear cut, they do not have a ton of weird skills, there are only two player types, they start with a decent number of re-rolls, and you can learn the basics of using a cage.

Start with something simple. Nurgle is fun, but have very unique and technical skills that you need to remember in a lot of situations. There is a reason why Humans and Orcs are in the starter box. Start with them! They are simple, forgiving, gives you the skills to help successfully perfroming the the most basic actions in the game like pass, pick up the ball, catch (Humans), dodge (Humans) and block. You will however be at a disadvantage any time you're fielding less than 4 blitzers (and 4 black orcs for orcs).

Just collect the minis that you like. If you buy the op guys but do not like them then you run the risk of burning out while painting them. Beginner teams? Orcs & Humans. Orcs have AV9 apart from the thrower and are therefore quite forgiving. Humans have a all the skills you want as a beginner: Pass, Sure Hands, Catch, Block, Dodge. Skaven are the best team because their gutter runners can run circles around the opposition. My favoured teams? Humans & Dark Elves.

I’m trying to get my group to play, I just adore the Orc models and the troll makes me laugh.

I have played quite a bit of the old Xbox game and I always found Humans to be the best suited for taking on all team styles.

Orks, you can just smash people and that's viable across pretty much all spectrums but it gets boring quickly and you really can only do a running game with them. So many agility based teams can shut down the running game by simply forcing you to make dodge checks. You drop the ball and then it gets scooped up, passed over your head. Orks have a tough time shutting that down.

Humans on the other hand, they have the versatility and skill access to make a pretty damn good all rounder team. Yes Elves will outpass them and Dwarves can outrun them, but the skill gap isn't so great that you can't use strategy to overcome that. Elves for example are pretty fragile and can't power through a defense. They can jump around one though, but that's where you're staggering defenders to cover more area in TZs. Dwarves can steamroll a defense on the run but they also can't form and defend a pocket as quickly thanks to their low MoV. It's also quite easy to assist up on the corners of a Dwarven pocket to force a hole for a blitz to come through. Dwarves are really only just highly armoured so it is possible to knock them down as easily as another Human, they're simply far more resilient to injury.

Skaven pose a problem to Humans as they have some serious speed and so you need to be wary of saavy players misleading you. A good Skaven player will set up a juicy pass, make you play back to it, then proceed to run halfway up the field for a handoff and score with a player you were not expecting. However, the ratmen are also easy pickings and if you can bully them down quickly and take away their options they won't fare so well.

Against teams that can beat you up, like Chaos and Orcs you really can't go toe to toe with them, but again you can assist up to take down the threats. Black Orks can ruin your day but they are also pretty slow and it's nothing to bring a couple assists up to help deal with them. But your true strength against these guys is the fact that you usually have a mobility advantage as well as a keen passing game. I cannot stress how easily the passing game can invalidate head krumpin.

Really why Humans succeed is because no matter what they get put up against they should have the answer. They might not be extremists in their talents like say High Elves with passing, but they have enough of a toolkit to be effective against everything. You may need to combine different tactics to shore up some weaknesses, but the point is they can do that where a lot of other teams simply can't. Dwarves will never be able to rely on passing for example. A Goblin team will never be able to rely on... anything.

Of course, it's all in the player and not the team too! If you really like a team then by all means, play that team. Learn it, inside and out, and you'll be far better with it than any other team you chose based on some perceived tactics. But it you want to play in a league and not feel like some teams will always beat you then play Humans because then that way you will always have at least some options as to how to deal with a teams tactics.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and my favorite team is not the Reikland Reavers it's the Mordheim Browns followed by the Norsca Raiders. Griff Overwald is a pretty boy, kinda like the Tom Brady of Blood Bowl.

Boo Reikland!

Also I'm a huge Halfling fan but I'm not holding my breath for them to get a kit anytime soon ...

Why are not all the teams listed?

Got the impression OP is mainly interested in the official models, or refuses to convert or buy 3rd parry models for those teams not officially released yet.

He may be playing in a GW store where official models are all that is permitted.

Some times I feel better off having tue closest GW store many hours drive away... I can play what I want where I want with whatever miniatures.

 darkcloak wrote:
I have played quite a bit of the old Xbox game and I always found Humans to be the best suited for taking on all team styles.

Orks, you can just smash people and that's viable across pretty much all spectrums but it gets boring quickly and you really can only do a running game with them. So many agility based teams can shut down the running game by simply forcing you to make dodge checks. You drop the ball and then it gets scooped up, passed over your head. Orks have a tough time shutting that down.

Humans on the other hand, they have the versatility and skill access to make a pretty damn good all rounder team. Yes Elves will outpass them and Dwarves can outrun them, but the skill gap isn't so great that you can't use strategy to overcome that. Elves for example are pretty fragile and can't power through a defense. They can jump around one though, but that's where you're staggering defenders to cover more area in TZs. Dwarves can steamroll a defense on the run but they also can't form and defend a pocket as quickly thanks to their low MoV. It's also quite easy to assist up on the corners of a Dwarven pocket to force a hole for a blitz to come through. Dwarves are really only just highly armoured so it is possible to knock them down as easily as another Human, they're simply far more resilient to injury.

Skaven pose a problem to Humans as they have some serious speed and so you need to be wary of saavy players misleading you. A good Skaven player will set up a juicy pass, make you play back to it, then proceed to run halfway up the field for a handoff and score with a player you were not expecting. However, the ratmen are also easy pickings and if you can bully them down quickly and take away their options they won't fare so well.

Against teams that can beat you up, like Chaos and Orcs you really can't go toe to toe with them, but again you can assist up to take down the threats. Black Orks can ruin your day but they are also pretty slow and it's nothing to bring a couple assists up to help deal with them. But your true strength against these guys is the fact that you usually have a mobility advantage as well as a keen passing game. I cannot stress how easily the passing game can invalidate head krumpin.

Really why Humans succeed is because no matter what they get put up against they should have the answer. They might not be extremists in their talents like say High Elves with passing, but they have enough of a toolkit to be effective against everything. You may need to combine different tactics to shore up some weaknesses, but the point is they can do that where a lot of other teams simply can't. Dwarves will never be able to rely on passing for example. A Goblin team will never be able to rely on... anything.

Of course, it's all in the player and not the team too! If you really like a team then by all means, play that team. Learn it, inside and out, and you'll be far better with it than any other team you chose based on some perceived tactics. But it you want to play in a league and not feel like some teams will always beat you then play Humans because then that way you will always have at least some options as to how to deal with a teams tactics.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and my favorite team is not the Reikland Reavers it's the Mordheim Browns followed by the Norsca Raiders. Griff Overwald is a pretty boy, kinda like the Tom Brady of Blood Bowl.

Boo Reikland!

Also I'm a huge Halfling fan but I'm not holding my breath for them to get a kit anytime soon ...

I played a lot of Blood Bowl around the time of 3rd edition and at the time thought the opposite of what you described was true. Orcs were great (I always played Orcs and did well with them against most teams) and Humans were rubbish.

However, playing again recently I wonder if it was just that all of our tactics back then were terrible and people defended badly against Orcs. It's really not that hard to stop them scoring if you have a full-strength team. It will get harder if they get lots of your players off the pitch hurt though. I'm in the process of working up some effective tactics for Orcs but they are fairly limited.

As you say, Humans have the tools to play in all sorts of ways which makes them useful - a very effective and reliable passing game is tricky though without AG4.

Which leads me to Elves - I'd have never played wussy pansy Elves back in the day, but now I love how fast and agile they are. 2 turn TD with High Elves/Elven Union is easy. The catchers with Catch and Nerves of Steel are fantastic. Get both through the opposition lines in one turn - they can only blitz one of them and next turn you bang a pass to the surviving one and score.

Dark Elves are also great - most have AV8 so are hard to bully and with a skill or two a Witch Elf makes a brilliant catcher.

 RobS wrote:

I played a lot of Blood Bowl around the time of 3rd edition and at the time thought the opposite of what you described was true. Orcs were great (I always played Orcs and did well with them against most teams) and Humans were rubbish.

However, playing again recently I wonder if it was just that all of our tactics back then were terrible and people defended badly against Orcs. It's really not that hard to stop them scoring if you have a full-strength team. It will get harder if they get lots of your players off the pitch hurt though. I'm in the process of working up some effective tactics for Orcs but they are fairly limited.

The teams perform at their best at different levels.

Orcs are a great team for 1000-1500 league play. Very survivable, suitably specialized and for the cost of a goblin you can threaten a 1TTD which affects how the enemy team plays. They aren't so hot at resurrection tournaments however as they are slightly slow so while they can fight it takes a good player to maintain control of the pitch. Skaven at great at resurection tourneys and the start of leagues, but when everyone else is hitting high tv's your squishiness means it is hard to preserve stars as reliably and you have to get use to playing with inducements making later league play trickier.

Humans honestly for me have been a second tier team and I think the NAF round up is pretty good, as long as you remember this can change massively at different TVs (Nurgle at 2000tv is fantastic for example).

Tier 1: Chaos Dwarf, Dwarf, Wood Elves, Skaven, Norse, Lizardmen, Orc, Undead, Amazon, Dark Elves
Tier 2: Chaos, Human, Khemri, Pact, Slann, High Elves, Nurgle, Necromantic, Pro Elves, Vampires, Underworld
Tier 3: Halflings, Goblins, Ogres

Tourney win analysis is here
http://naf.talkfantasyfootball.org/total_for_all_competitions.html