Eddy
Joined: Aug 04, 2004
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 Posted:
Sep 11, 2006 - 01:20 |
 
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their skills still are very different, and they get them easily.
I'd like to remind you that many mutations were rarely, if ever, taken in LRB4. More variety than the "claw/rsc" no brainer is good. |
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Jackbedead
Joined: Mar 01, 2004
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Sep 12, 2006 - 21:18 |
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Every chaos team had at least one big hand, they won't anymore
As many as possible usually had claw, they won't anymore
Tentacles was a must for a minotaur or even a chaos warrior, not anymore
block and MB are standard.... on chaos? Boring. I'll be playing rotters thank you.
Everything that made chaos fun, the mutations, are now worthless and so then is the team.
I got flack for saying that chaos dwarves stayed the same. First off, they lost Troll. That sucks, since the minotaur is twice as likely to get killed or retired with it's lower armor and lack of regen. Then they got mutation, but only on the blockers, so they'll ever actually take the mutations. So all in all, I think they've gotten a tiny bit weaker, but not enough to affect their play style.
Other teams that took a hit was skaven, pretty hard one too, with the weakening of team favorites like very long legs and big hand. Also the price change of the rat ogre.
Undead got a boost by giving strength skills to the wights and it was a fair trade to lose gen on the mummies. But poor Khemri got hid bad since they only lost gen on the mummies.
The best new teams to hit the scene?
Rotter - now an amazing team, these guys ARE the new chaos team. Coming with a possible 5 players with foul appearance, 9 regenerates, the new disturbing presence, and cheap fodder linemen!? Very nice.
Dark Elves - I still get four blitzers with move 7 and armor 8, and with less reliance on fan factor I'll finally get that reroll I always wanted. I'm not convinced on assassin quite yet, but it basically allows Dark Elves to get around their *only* problem, str 5+ players. Woot, like they needed help.
Lizardmen - Wrestle! Juggernaught! Fend! All of these new skills smile very nicely on saurus. Plus with the loss of casualty machines like claw and the weakening of tentacles skinks will see a lot more good plays on the field. This team is benefitting not from a lineup change, but it seems that all of the skill changes really benefit them. Say you wrestle down a chaos warrior, he gets up and can move one square to your 3, you come out on top, and best part you'll be harder to cover since you have a good chance of knocking them down and not worrying about dodging away. Fend will also keep players out of your tackle zone. Juggernaught also seems like a great pick for the guys. Sneaky git on skinks, oh yes, with that move they'll be fouling machines. |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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Sep 12, 2006 - 21:50 |
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| Jackbedead wrote: | | Lizardmen - Wrestle! Juggernaught! Fend! |
I can see Juggernaut (on the right Saurus), but Wrestle and Fend? On Saurus? Perhaps on very specialist Saurus, yes. But I don't feel a whole new world of Saurus tactics opening up for me, to be honest.
Also (re: CDs):
| Quote: | | Then they got mutation, but only on the blockers, so they'll ever actually take the mutations. |
By 'ever', I assume you mean 'never'? Why exactly wouldn't they take Claw? Or Prehensile Tail? |
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fen
Joined: Sep 10, 2005
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Sep 13, 2006 - 00:18 |
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Never take mutations on CD Blockers?
Here's the premier MBBL Chaos Dwarf side
Chaos Dwarfs are the best Claw players by a long way, because they start with Block and Tackle all they need is Claw (Doubles) and Mighty Blow. 
Mind you, looking at all the mutation teams, the only mutations that are picked in LRB5 are Claw and Extra Arms (with a couple of exceptions.) *shrug* Looks like we've just replaced two must have mutations with two different must have mutations. Whoops... |
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Composer99
Joined: May 18, 2006
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Sep 13, 2006 - 01:13 |
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I really think people are underestimating the effect of being able to get the mutations as a matter of course in LRB5 with Chaos, as compared to LRB4 where you have to get lucky. Since a player has a 1 in 6 (6 in 36) chance of rolling doubles on a skill roll, on average, players will only have one "double" skill (less, in fact, since two of the double results also fall on stat increase results which, especially in the case of the +ST upgrade, coaches are more likely to select for their players than the "double" skill they could otherwise get). In LRB4, then, you can't count on getting mutation combos - if you do get a lot of them, then consider yourself blessed by Nuffle.
In LRB5 it's no longer a matter of luck. My Fumbbl chaos team has one guy with claw on it, even though almost the whole team has skills. In LRB5, I can guarantee at least two or three of those beastmen would have Claw by now. Sure, it's not as good against AV 7 or 8 players as in LRB4, but given that to the player with Claw everyone has AV 7 (unless they have AV6 or 5, in which case they're in trouble enough anyway) I don't think it makes too much of a difference. With just Claw, if you knock someone down on a block you have a 15 in 36 chance of breaking armour (8 or better) and then a 15 in 36 chance of getting them off the pitch (8 or better for the KO or casualty). This translates to a net 225 in 1296 chance of clearing an opponent off the pitch when you knock them down (17.36%). This may not seem great, but just do the math for a non-claw player trying to clear an AV9 player off the pitch and you'll see it's actually pretty good.
Now, when you add Mighty Blow, the results are quite impressive. You have either a 21 in 36 chance of breaking armour (7 or better) and a 15 in 36 chance of removing from the pitch (8 or better) - that is, you had to use mighty blow on the armour roll, or you have a 15 in 36 chance of breaking and a 21 in 36 chance of removing - if you got to use it on the injury roll. Either way, your chance of removing a player from the pitch when they have been knocked down is 24.31% [Note: It must be admitted after this statement that my calculations could well be quite incorrect and my grasp of probability calculaiton rather shaky. It has been four years since I have done anything in that domain - the rust is pretty thick and well-developed.], which is a substantial improvement over Claw by itself.
Now, add piling on. At this stage my patience to compute the numbers involved wears out, but the effect that piling on has in increasing the chance of getting someone your claw/mighty blow player has knocked over off the pitch will be non-trivial, especially now that it can be used on either the armour break or the injury roll.
What about block? Well, I just wouldn't get it on the two or three beastmen who will be the initial claw/mb/po players, until after they've got this combo. As long as you make the effort to get 3d blocks, they have only (my counting may be off here) an 8 in 216 (3.7%) chance of falling down themselves, whatever result they inflict upon their victim, and a 152 in 216 (70.31%) chance of knocking their victim down (or 91 in 216 (42.13%) if their victim has dodge) without themselves being knocked over. Then, assuming your team goes on long enough, just get block and tackle on them.
[Edit: Any one who wants should check my number crunching. Also, it might be interesting to see how Thick Skull or Stunty affect these results]
Once you have two or three (or more!) beastmen with claw/mighty blow/piling on, you should be able to rip up just about anyone else, and they will have a very hard time doing the same to you unless they also are chaos or Nurgle. Since they don't age, the only thing that will take these team-killing players off the pitch for good is injuries or death. Since in LRB5 niggles aren't as bad as they used to be in terms of players missing games while still contributing to team value, the only injury I'd consider retiring one of these beastmen after getting it is the strength drop. So it isn't exactly easy to get rid of these beasts, especially since you should also make some effort to protect them, not to mention make sure replacements are in the offing (and your 2nd/3rd generation team killers can afford the luxury of starting with block).
As for Chaos vs. Nurgle I don't think it's quite so clear-cut that Nurgle is better. Sure, the Pestigores and Nurgle Warriors have more skills than their Chaos equivalents, but (1) Nurgle can't get apothecaries and only 1 Igor (to re-roll regen rolls), whereas Chaos can get the apothecary, and given sufficient cash or sufficient inducements they can get up to 2 more; (2) Chaos Warriors (5439) are faster-moving and better at ball-handling than Nurgle Warriors (4429), which in turn means they are faster at picking up spps and thus faster at getting new skills (partly nullifying their fewer skills to begin with), plus they are slightly cheaper (you will almost invariably start with more Chaos Warriors, who in a longer league will therefore earn skills at a greater rate than Nurgle Warriors); (3) you can get as many Beastmen as you want, but only 4 of the Nurgle Pestigores (the Nurgle equivalent), and the Beastmen are much cheaper to boot; (4) Rotters may be really cheap and easy to replace (you can get them for free, after all), but they don't contribute much to the hitting power of the Nurgle squad compared to the way Beastmen can contribute to the hitting power of a Chaos squad; and finally (5) the Minotaur gets mutations on normal skill rolls - meaning they are a matter of course, whereas the Beast only gets them on doubles (of which he is only likely to get one, statistically speaking, and it is generally used to get block). I don't think Chaos is better than Nurgle, but I certainly don't think Nurgle is better than Chaos. |
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pac
Joined: Oct 03, 2005
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| Posted:
Sep 13, 2006 - 01:28 |
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| Composer99 wrote: | | Once you have two or three (or more!) beastmen with claw/mighty blow/piling on, you should be able to rip up just about anyone else, and they will have a very hard time doing the same to you unless they also are chaos or Nurgle. |
Or Chaos Dwarves. Or Skaven. This combo only requires <i>one double</i> for those teams, and a single double is not that hard to come by. You're right that this is a powerful combo, but Chaos are not/will not be its most fearsome exponents.
Also, you're overlooking the fact that, leaving Claw out of the equation for a moment, just Mighty Blow and Piling On <i>also</i> makes for a nasty combo. And your Beastmen are only AV 8, so your opponent's lack of Claw is not such a big deal. I would give a team of Dwarves with Mighty Blow and Piling On (not forgetting Guard!) excellent odds against your Chaos side. And Chaos Dwarves with a bit of Claw thrown in too? No contest. |
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momfreeek
Joined: Jan 23, 2006
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Sep 13, 2006 - 01:50 |
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I think you're all too fixated on this whole "Claw, Kill" chaos thing. Beastmen now have a huge range of skills to choose from.
Two heads. Seems like a poor mans +AG, but give it to a tackle, wrestle beastman and suddenly he's an incredible blitzer! 3 normal skills. Two heads is great on a horns player, any beastman would do well to have 2 heads and on a double they get dodge.
Extra arms, very long legs, pass block. Ok looks pretty silly, but what about an AG4 beastman going this route? 4 skills (starting with +AG) and you have a 2+ dodging, 3+ intercepting, safe throw immune pass blocker who can pick up and catch on 1+. Not bad at all! Get him a double and he can leap on 2s as well.
Get a double and you're looking at agility skills rather than mutations. How about a block, dodge, stand firm, tentacles, prehensile tail chaos warrior? 5 skills, 1 double. how annoying is he? He's nigh on immovable, and you need high strength and high agility to get away from him.
They can't kill elves very well, but they could sure annoy the hell out of them.
As for wrestle, yes it makes block less worthwhile. Well, good. Block is boring in LRB4, its a must have first skill for almost every player. So block isn't as good? Well don't get it then! Get something more interesting and laugh at the wrestlers. |
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fen
Joined: Sep 10, 2005
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| Posted:
Sep 13, 2006 - 02:21 |
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Tentacles is rubbish on ST4.
It's about a 30% chance of working (can't be bothered to do the full probs atm.) Waste of a skill roll. It's not even that spectacular on ST5.
Instead if you want to stop dodging away, you take multiple Prehensile Tail players.
That's why the best two early mutations are Claw + Extra Arms and then in third place is Prehensile Tail.
Foul Appearance is also decent.
Your Extra Arms, VLL, Pass Block guy is like a very bad Gutter Runner. I'd rather play Skaven and wait for the doubles if I wanted to make that player.
The best doubles choice I've seen for Chaos Warriors so far has been Jump Up. Block, Stand Firm, Jump Up works pretty well with AG3. |
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momfreeek
Joined: Jan 23, 2006
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Sep 13, 2006 - 02:50 |
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| fen wrote: | Tentacles is rubbish on ST4.
It's about a 30% chance of working (can't be bothered to do the full probs atm.) Waste of a skill roll. It's not even that spectacular on ST5.
Instead if you want to stop dodging away, you take multiple Prehensile Tail players.
That's why the best two early mutations are Claw + Extra Arms and then in third place is Prehensile Tail.
Foul Appearance is also decent. |
Fair enough, I didn't check the changes to tentacles. Still, prehensile tail, stand firm seems nice for 2 normal skills. Why not 2 heads? I'd have thought that was quite fine for a beastman.
| fen wrote: | | Your Extra Arms, VLL, Pass Block guy is like a very bad Gutter Runner. I'd rather play Skaven and wait for the doubles if I wanted to make that player. |
Yeah, fair point. More of an interesting example than a good idea.. still, the extra MA doesn't help pass block and I could retort with: "Extra Arms on a beastman? He's just a very bad gutter runner. I'd rather take skaven and it doesn't even matter what skills i roll". 
As someone who has plenty of experience of LRB5, what's your general view of chaos now then? Interesting to see the skills you recommend, but I haven't really got a clue how they compare to other teams now. |
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Composer99
Joined: May 18, 2006
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Sep 13, 2006 - 03:10 |
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You're quite right, momfreek. The combos available are many and varied.
Want a chaos warrior who can get into tight corners (for example, to hit the ball carrier, perhaps given a lack of leaping beastmen who fit the bill)? No longer must you rely on doubles. Break tackle and two heads will do nicely - two normal skill rolls and your chaos warrior can dodge into tackle zones like an AG5 elf. Then you get the skills that let him pop the ball loose with more reliability - block or wrestle [edit: or both, that way unless you really roll poorly that ball is coming loose], tackle, strip ball (and maybe even horns if you're in a [edit: high-ST bash 'em up] league with lots of guard). If he gets doubles and gets dodge, even better. Sure, there's the 5.6% chance he'll get an AG upgrade that would render break tackle irrelevant, but I wouldn't count on it ruining your day (as if an AG upgrade can ruin anyone's day).
How about a ball-retrieval specialist (to pick the ball up after your leaping VLL beastman or breack tackle CW has popped it loose)? Big hand, extra arms, sure hands (optional, but probably worth it to save team re-rolls for other occasions). All normal rolls. Since his job will be either to pick up the ball and run in for the TD or pick up the ball and toss it somewhere else, consider using doubles to get pass or dodge and also consider two heads so he can break away more easily.
Want to keep those pesky side-stepping catchers and runners in their place? Grab, prehensile tail, frenzy and tentacles will keep your current target stuck to you and you can herd him or her towards the sidelines with relative ease to boot.
Granted Nurgle can get many of these combos too, the fact is that it's easier for Chaos to have all sorts of different niche players (or to have two or three of the same speciality player) than for Nurgle because Chaos has more beastmen.
Also, moving back to the "claw, kill fixation" for just one more moment, I should point out that the situation is simply not as clear-cut as you claim, pac. W/out mighty blow, if you knock down 100 AV7 players, statistically speaking only 7 of them will be casualties. With mighty blow, 10 of them will be. If you knock down 100 AV8 players, you get 5 cas (w/out MB) and 7 (with MB) respectively. If you knock down 100 AV9 players, you're looking at a measly 3 cas (w/out MB) and 5 cas (with MB) respectively. Piling on does its wicked work along the way (albeit in a not-easily-calculated fashion). The point is not that skaven or chaos dwarves can also get claw/mighty blow/piling on or just MB/PO (with the CD's having block and tackle to boot), it's that chaos will almost invariably have more such players. If it comes down to a slaughterfest, the team with the most players who can dish out 10%+ casualty rates is likely to prevail over the long haul, and a chaos squad is significantly more likely to have many such players than the chaos dwarves are (after all, only one of the six CD blockers are likely to get claw as their first skill, whereas any number of LRB5 beastmen can do it). Not to mention beastmen can skill up faster than chaos dwarf blockers can because they are faster and better at ball handling (and if any AG2 player on a CD team is picking up the ball, it's going to be the bull centaurs).
Anyway, I suppose I shall shut up now about chaos. After all, there are 20 other teams to examine in more or less exquisite detail. |
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drdan325
Joined: Aug 09, 2006
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 Posted:
Sep 13, 2006 - 03:48 |
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hey chaos get's majorly better. they get mutations on regular rolls now. first two skills claws to the armor and fangs to injury. thank you very much. |
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momfreeek
Joined: Jan 23, 2006
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Sep 13, 2006 - 04:02 |
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fangs is gone. completely gone. |
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fen
Joined: Sep 10, 2005
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Sep 13, 2006 - 11:01 |
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| momfreeek wrote: | | As someone who has plenty of experience of LRB5, what's your general view of chaos now then? Interesting to see the skills you recommend, but I haven't really got a clue how they compare to other teams now. |
Heh, I've played with them more than any other LRB5 team (about 85 TT games over 3 teams) and honestly? I think they're a bit naff now.
Mutations on normal rolls are exciting. But many of the mutations are so reduced in power or one dimensional in use it's hard to get excited about them.
Claw is solid, but worse than MB against AV<8 (useless against AV7 or less.) The main use for Claw is to take it after you've gotten MB and stack it. It's still a decent pick as it makes a mockery of people's +AV increases.
Extra Arms is better than the LRB4 Big Hand because of it's increased flexibility. But it really does railroad the player you pick it on into being a dedicated ball carrier, I prefer to take Sure Hands first anyway. Mostly for the Strip Ball protection.
Prehensile Tail is probably the best way Chaos have to keep Agility teams in check now. It stacks and works well in combination with other skills you want. Without Prehensile Tail you need a couple of Block, Tackle, Mighty Blow players.
Disturbing Presense is kinda rubbish (but good on Nurgle as you have 5 players who start with it to build on) I can see Skaven Pass Block Gutter Runners making use of it.
Foul Appearance is nice, sure it lost half of it's effect to Disturbing Presense, but the best part is left here. It's especially good at reducing player turnover later on. I could see sticking this as a 5th skill onto beastmen (3rd on LoS boys if I have to build them.)
Two Heads, Sure this is a bad +Ag roll but I can see it having applications if you want to make a decent Cage breaker. It stacks with Break Tackle as well, I did have a ST5 Blodge, Strip Ball, Two Heads Chaos Warrior. He wasn't half bad.
Very Long Legs, You need to roll a doubles to make use of the leap section. Or intend to set up a pass blocking team. Like I said before, I think this is better on Gutter Runners as they have AG4 and can take Leap on a normal roll. There could be beastmen who can make use of this, but I think they'd be special beastmen indeed.
Big Hand, Well if you manage to construct a player who can get to the ball when it's in tackle zones. This skill rocks. Plus as a minor bonus it ignores the rain. But I think it's a specialised
Horns, same as before, except it's applied before the dauntless roll. So it's been nerfed. Plus Chaos start with so much of this I see no reason to take it on the Chaos Warriors
Last of all is tentacles. It's been nerfed hard, you only roll one dice eachm the escaping player gets a +1 to the roll and also escapes on ties. So you need ST5 to get a 50% chance of pinning players in place. It's worth considering for +ST Chaos Warriors and minotaurs though.
It's also notable that Spikes and Fangs do not exist.
Onto the team. The biggest change is the big guy, no longer can you have the Troll or Ogre  It's minotaur or nothing! The one advantage of the mino is it can take mutations on a normal roll.
Skillwise Block, Guard, Mighty Blow, Stand Firm and Tackle are the bread and butter skills. Block, Guard, Stand Firm in particular is very strong (and a great template to tack Prehensile Tail + Foul Appearance onto), you tend not to need more than 2-3 Claw players. And building specialised players is often helpful.
Of the new skills, Juggernaut is good, Grab I've never skilled up enough to make proper use of. Wrestle I'm not so keen on, I prefer my players to stay on their feet and keep use of their Guard skill. And I've seen a lot of dedicated wrestle ball 'strippers' die the turn after they wrestled the ball carrier down. Fend is strong, but doesn't work with Stand Firm (it does counter Piling On though), Kick Off Return is good if you're going with dedicated ball collecting Beastmen.
Sadly because of the increased on pitch violence (thanks in part to Piling On) Beastmen & Minotaurs die like crazy. I struggled with all three teams early on as I found it very difficult to get up to 14 players, and losing skilled beastmen hurts. 
Some Sample players that I've used along the way.
Beastman - Block, Tackle, Mighty Blow, Piling On (Never wanted to PO with a Chaos Warrior, so built beastmen to do it)
Beastman - Accurate, Sure Hands, Strong Arm used in conjunction with some Extra Arms players
Chaos Warrior - Block, Mighty Blow, Guard, Claw
Chaos Warrior - +ST, Block, Tentacle, Stand Firm
Chaos Warrior - +ST, Block, Dodge, Break Tackle, Strip Ball
Minotaur - Claw, Juggernaut
Beastman - Block, +AV, Foul Appearance, Guard
Beastman - Block, Guard, Stand Firm, Prehensile Tail <- Love these guys
Ok this has gotten too long. I hope it covers my experiences, but in summary I've found LRB5 Chaos to be a love hate experience. They tend to be worse than other teams at every TV. The most fun I had was entering a Chaos Team late into a league and inducing Borak for about 6 games in a row (Plus Ripper for some of those.) Once I got to higher TV things really sucked... |
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Tophat
Joined: Jun 01, 2006
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| Posted:
Sep 13, 2006 - 11:21 |
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id say that disturbing presence was the better half of Foul appearance , rather than the other way round . |
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Tophat
Joined: Jun 01, 2006
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| Posted:
Sep 13, 2006 - 11:22 |
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| drdan325 wrote: | | hey chaos get's majorly better. they get mutations on regular rolls now. first two skills claws to the armor and fangs to injury. thank you very much. |
okay out of intrest how long ago did FANGs exsist as a skill ? |
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