Opinions on Chaos Edition races?

[Kail]

I'm kind of curious as to what the opinion is among people who know what they're talking about with regards to the new teams for the Chaos Edition.  My uninformed two cents, having pootered around in single player a bit, is as follows, so please correct me:

Underworld: probably my favorite of the new teams, I always do surprisingly well with them (in single player) though I'm not sure if that's because I'm coming off of a goblin team or because my dice rolls are ludicrously lucky (I just finished a 3-0 game vs. Lizardmen where I inflicted something like eight injuries, four KOs and sustained just one KO, somehow), because on paper, they look like a joke: half goblin and half skaven, with the most useful players from each team sidelined.  From the goblins, they get only one troll and no secret weapons, and the skaven obviously leave behind their gutter runners.  While blitzers aren't bad (compared to the goblins, at least), they aren't really absurdly good either, and their main strength seems to be being slightly less bad at bashing than skaven linemen.  I guess the team is supposed to play a running game, but the goblins have trouble keeping up with the skaven and handoffs are pain because of animosity, so I'm struggling to see where they shine... or are they supposed to be another one of those "weaker" teams?  Mutation access is nice, but given that their players are mostly made of styrofoam, I'm having trouble seeing how they'll stay alive long enough to really develop well.

Khorne: I cannot play as these guys.  At all.  They have a lot of frenzy but no block and average STR and armor, which makes me hesitant to bash with them for fear they'll clobber themselves, and since this is hypothetically a bashy team (as far as I know), I'm not sure what else to do with them.  They seem kinda suicidal.  I haven't tried them much, but it's always a disaster when I do.

Chaos Dwarf: These guys seem pretty badass.  A dwarf team with a big guy who doesn't get sent off is nice, and those centaurs are absolute bastards.  The hobgoblins seem to be decent ball carriers, and kind of tend to hog a lot of the SPP (considering how easy to kill they are) but generally, they're pretty sweet.  I don't get their star player, though, a thrower who's saddled with secret weapon?  Why would I blow inducement money on a specialized thrower who gets sent off after one drive when my team has no receivers?  In general, though, they seem like a really vicious team.  And with chaos dwarves getting mutations on doubles (I think?) they seem like they'll plateau later than regular dwarf teams do, too.

Any advice or corrections?

[proudft]

I haven't really played the other new teams yet, but I've been playing Khorne single-player a lot.  In single-player, they start fairly lame with their lack of any pseudo-reroll skills and are totally screwed over by being unable to buy many rerolls if you want the big demon guy.  I later decided after some gold & leveling, you really need 4 or more rerolls to not be constantly turning over with various Frenzy mishaps, even after you get the hang of Frenzy.  So there may be some suffering for quite a while at 2 or 3 rerolls, this seems to be a major downside.

The big demon guy is really useful.  Unfortunately he is always using your Blitz, so there's a 1 in 6 chance that doesn't happen with his Wild Animal.

Things really started to turn around once I got Block on a few guys to hit with, Dodge on some others to run with, and by TV 1300 or so it was really starting to come together.  By TV 1600, the AI teams were getting really destroyed.   I haven't actually lost a game yet (I think the record is 22-1-0), but the victories have certainly been much much easier as time goes by.

I then played two or three games against people, and the Frenzy is, of course, harder to work with vs. a human than the dumb ol' computer but it was not the complete shitheap I was expecting.

My conclusions so far?   It's a Frenzy team (duh).  Basically, you are going to try to surf as many people as you can.  Either you are going to be shoving people off the field and getting a numbers advantage, or the threat of this happening is going to restrict the play to the center of the field and then you get free reign of the sidelines.

You can't cage worth a crap.   So you need some dedicated runners or try to put together some passing game somehow.  The team is one of the 'flexible' ones like humans, where you are going to try to bash the elves and run the fuck away from orcs.  If you get into a big brawl versus any bashing teams you will quickly get mauled because you get easily separated with Frenzy unless you stand there and take the beating.   You have to really work and position yourself so that Frenzy is always an advantage instead of a disadvantage.

They are definitely Fun for me.  I'm not decided yet on how good they are, or how good I am with them personally.  I need a lot more games vs. people to make that decision.  But I'm glad they're in, they are something different and interesting.

[Llyse]

Have made teams and will try to get a play my Thursday night/America's Thursday morning

[Ingmar]

Chaos Dwarf is the class of the new teams I think, but Underworld is better than I originally thought it would be. It's a very fragile setup though, you lose any of your skaven and pretty soon your field is going to be filling up with goblins and you don't want that, even if they do have M access.

Khorne needs a lot of development before it will be competitive, to at least 1400-1500 I think.

[Megrim]

Chaos Dwarves are very high Tier 1, probably one of the best teams in the bracket. Very very good at everything, and can develop into a seriously beastly team. Only real downside for them is that if they lose their bulls, the team will struggle until it can rebuild them.

Underworld is a Tier 2 team, that can push itself up into T1 with a bit of development and some luck. Like all low AV teams, they are ever only one game away from retirement, but unlike most of those other teams, they can actually dish the pain right back out. Skaven Blitzers are amazing pieces, probably one of the best all-around in that category. Only the DE Blitzer is arguably better.

Khorne looks like a control team and not bash, oddly enough, but is probably low Tier 2 until they start getting core skills on their players. The team needs a lot of Guard, from what I can see, in addition to some of the bread&butter abilities (Sure Hands, Kick, etc... ). It remains to be seen how they turn out, but I suspect that they are stronger then people give them initial credit for.

[Ingmar]

I think the Pro Elf Blitzer is the best one really, with its half price sidestep.

[Megrim]

Yea I was thinking that they are also worth mentioning, but imo, I feel they don't add as much to the PE team as the other two do to their respective teams.

[Ingmar]

I can see that, yeah - and it helps that dark elves get to field 4.

[eldaec]

Chaos Dwarfs I like because I don't find the Chaos or Dwarf interesting enough but adding them together makes it a maybe.

Underworld seem like they have a lot of potential because dodgy mutations are just more interesting than bashy ones.

Khorne feels like a gimmick team that doesn't work thematically without mutation, and seem way too swingy depending on skills. I can't imagine being much fun to play or to play against because of all the dice rolling. I am aware I might be biased because they are not a 'real' team.

[luckton]

I am aware I might be biased because they are not a 'real' team.

And thus will be the general mindset of everyone when they win the next f13 season 

[eldaec]

Had a go with khorne in single player.

The positional demons don't visually distinguish themselves from each other well enough. And none of pieces really play different. Occaisionally you find yourself looking for not-frenzy guy. Horns on the demons isn't as good as you'd think when you always have to position considering assists for the potential followup.

And all the players are basically naked. So in khorne vs khorne you can't tell who is on which team.

Also the big guy is too damn big.

And juggernaught really doesn't make up for no block.

[eldaec]

OTOH, I did chuckle when I noticed the Khorne 'cheerleader' is just a huge pile of skulls.

[Ingmar]

Hm? They're daemonettes it looked like to me.

[eldaec]

Oh, I just looked again and you're right - it's the flags that get replaced by a pile of skulls.

[Modern Angel]

I'm going Chaos Dwarf next season. I'd never played with them until CE and I really like them.

[Kail]

Kind of off topic, but with regards to the single player campaign, are rerolls being handled differently now?  It seems like the computer always gets an extra one, starting the game with something like 4/3 or 3/2, even if they didn't get any inducements and the kickoff result was unrelated to rerolls.  Or has it always been like this, and I haven't noticed?

[Ingmar]

That means they have a player with Leader.

[Llyse]

I've played with all 3 of the new teams now and although Chaos Dwarves are the strongest of the three, Bull Centaurs need block and are slow to level. Hobgoblin's are ugly thralls (Thanks to Megrim for pointing out their stat setup) and Blockers are just Beards.

Khorne on the other hand are a barrel frenzy filled fun but they need block more than the Cleveland Browns. I look forward to playing many more stupid fun filled games with them.

Underworld is also in the joke tier of teams but funfilled somehow even without gutter runners nor secret weapons, goblins are still fun. I may have been biased since this was another mirror match against Satael.

Also the achievements in steam are a nice carrot for more games played too