Quirkworthy

Here’s the really challenging one to sort out.

Mechanites v2

I’ve increased many of the points costs, and shuffled around a few of the abilities. That makes the nasty combos much more expensive. However, that’s probably not enough.

To balance out the flexibility somewhat, the team is not allowed to purchase CD: they simply don’t work well as a team in that way.

Finally, the limitations of small workshops mean that they can’t focus exclusively on the specialists (which take lots more time to develop and finesse). The contracts with the DGB require them to field teams rather than single cool players, so, they must take at least as many Jacks as they have Guards and Strikers. That change should also help in league play.

I’ve not included a minimum number of players as a requirement as several people suggested because I think this is more properly a global rule if it’s needed at all.

One of the more problematical and powerful teams.

As with the other teams, there have been lots of useful and interesting comments – thank you all. The following incorporates that feedback.

Edit: updated to v3 to clarify that doubled cost applies for all such purchases, not just those at team creation.

Plague v3

Some of the points have been changed slightly, a couple of options have changed. Mostly the tables remain as they were because this reflects the model range.

The biggest difference is in the overall team building rules. All models must have at least one mutation, and all models in a team must be different. Incidentally, this makes them a much more appropriate mutant team. The crowd wouldn’t stand for a bunch of mutants looking like the 29ers – they want their mutants weird and varied!

Yes, this does make them a bit more of a modelling challenge. Then again, they were never expected to be anything else.

EarthDragon thought these were fine, while most others thought them a bit weak. I take ED’s point, and I agree that a thinky and skilled player will be able to do well with them as they stand. However, I think that most players will only adapt to them slowly, if at all, so I’ve made some small changes to make them easier to use.

Crystallans v2

The CD has become a card. That allows Coaches to try the familiar Jack approach. This, incidentally, now adds up properly too 🙂

I’ve changed Harmonics to give Speed bonuses before Strength. This was swapped to mitigate the problem of Speed 5 Guards being knocked over.

I’ve also changed Harmonics to work at range 3, not just 2. This means they don’t have to bunch up so much, and also helps with the fallen Guards.

Is this too much? Does harmonics need to go back to range 2? Give them a try and see what you think.

These bad boys were too powerful by a large margin. Consequently, I’ve made numerous changes to both their stat line and abilities, as well as adding clarifications on all the questions raised. Lots of excellent points in the previous thread.

The aim here was to both tone them down a bit, and make them slightly more reliant on their portal ability to move around.

The portal rules have been simplified very slightly and brought a little more in line with the rest of the DB rules.

Koris v2

If you can get these chaps on the table over the next couple of days I’d love to hear what you find.

A v2 of the Tsudochan. No changes to their rules or stats, just an extra paragraph at the end to clarify that they cannot move either the ball or the Ref.

Tsudochan v2

I read all the comments on the Updates thread, and they’re pretty consistent, which is always good. In fact, much more so than I’d expected – all of which makes updating things easier.

The summary is:

Crystallans: slightly too weak.

Tsudochan: fine as they are.

Ada Lorana: a bit too powerful, but not by a lot.

Koris: a bit too powerful, but not by a lot.

Mechanites: overpowered (mainly due to flexibility).

Plague: overpowered (mainly due to flexibility).

So, the Monks can stay as they are, three teams need tweaks, and the last two need their flexibility mitigating. That’s the tricky one, not because there are no clear ways to do this, but because that’s their signature thing and I don’t want to take it away from them entirely.

One comment that a couple of people had was about Jacks in general: the new teams that rely heavily on Jacks will benefit disproportionately if/when Jacks get revised/improved. That’s true, however, as we don’t yet know what or when that change will be we have to ignore it for now. When we make any changes to the core game (like basic rules for Jacks) it’s bound to change the balance between all the teams, and that creates a lot of ancillary work. There’s a lot more to making that change than simply saying all Jacks get Slide (or whatever).

I’m back online properly now – technical hitch fixed 🙂

In the UK we have the Salute 2015 show in London tomorrow, so that’s going to take up all of my time on saturday. I will be on the Mantic stand for an hour or so from 2pm, so drop by if you fancy a chat.

To go back to the DB teams, there were some comments about balance of teams overall. I’m hoping to do a comprehensive review of all the DBO teams later this year, in order to correct all the balance issues. I’ve spoke before about the complexities of balance and points values, so I won’t go on about that right now. For the moment, and for these latest teams, work on the assumption that they need to be on a par with the Trontek 29ers, when both teams are played in a one-off game by a Coach that knows how to use them.

Several of the latest teams are a bit OTT, which is fine as they can be toned down or increased in cost easily enough. Personally I think all could do with at least a bit of tweaking. But how much?

For the moment, and just thinking about these 6 teams (we’ll come back to the older teams later), how do you rate them? Which ones are too powerful, too weak, and by how much? Are they impossibly too good, woefully inept, or just a shade out?

In other words, without going into detail, what’s your one line summary of each team’s power, as it stands now? I’ll check this thread and use a combination of all the comments here and on the individual team threads to update all the team files on sunday, when I’m back from Salute.

If you repost this anywhere else, be sure to ask folk to pop back here and add their ratings too, so we can get as wide a selection of comments as possible.

And please, stick to these latest 6 teams for now. We will come back to the older teams later. 

Thanks.