What kind of team roster do we want to have?

As there has been some talk in the army list topics about what level of chance/risk we want to have in a built and that is always to a degree dependant on the team roster, we should have a general discussion about that.

At the extremes there a two approaches:

A) minimizing any risks and built very conservative armies that will have problems to score big but should go for some steady points without much risk to give away points.

B) having as many aggressive builds as possible to give the opponent an overload on armies that can score big, which in turn holds the risk to get some bad matchups where big points can be lost as well.

Obviously we can also go to something in between.

Now why is it important to discuss this in the first place? Well, army selction for the team and roster building per army will very much depend on the approach for the team roster. This will also give an indication for the training days in which direction rosters should be build/tested.


Personally my appoach would more be in the direction of A - with probably 1-2 armies that can score really well (15+) but still in a reasonable limit of risks, if pairing is ok or good. 4-5 armies that can score mediocre results (10-14) without much risk. And lastly at least 2 armies that are really just there as roadblocks going for a draw.
From my point of view, bringing many aggressive builds and going towards option B requires very aggressive players that can spot opportunities and the associated risks very well and that know as many movement and positioning tricks as possible for their own gameplay as well as for the opponent and that basically can cite the ETC rules and FAQs in their sleep or they will be outplayed by more experienced opponents.
Now, from how I see the player base in Switzerland at the moment and in the near future we do not have that many players that imo can field aggressive builds successfully at the ETC. That will hopefully change with the idea of training days and more tournaments with ETC rules and knitting the community closer together.
Lastly - so that nobody gets me wrong - I would not even consider myself fit for fielding one of these aggressive builds, as that is not my general attitude, I am far to conservative and risk averse for that. (woh would have guessed )

Looking forward to your opinions and points of view!

I'm a VII edition player, and imho the "all-in" tactic is not funny. As you say we don't have 8 players that can have this kind of play. It's easier to play conservative (not easy but easier) and if any team (not only Switzerland but also Germany, Denmark, Italy,...) would ever decide to play that way they would be crushed by opponents because you need an extremely high level that can go over EACH other team.

Maybe in a friendly game is funny to try "what would happen if I charge this with my big monster?", not at the ETC. I think it would be frustrating to test for 4-5 months, to pay for the trip and hostel and than just see our team explodes because of the luck. Or just because for the opponents it'll be easy to block 5 of ours armies and put the 20 on the other 3.





So: A.

I think there is one important thing we should keep in mind.

An agressive list doesn't necessary means a risk playing style!

As Biboun raised the point, you may play a dragon perfectly safe as well (sometimes it's even easier as it is a lot of points you can move away from any risk).
Taking risk is not to be brought back to only "can I be shot slain by a canon"


I think we should keep some kind of an equilibrium. An equilibrium is the team composition, and an equilibrium in the arm lists themselves as well.

Let's test some rosters to then have a broad idea of what we'll like to see played, and then we see which opponent an army is most likely to face. And we can thus build strong armies.

Thanks for the feedback!

I agree, that aggressive lists do not necessarily need to be played agressively. Nonetheless, all these lists usually are associated with more particularly bad matchups than the non-aggressive/conservative lists. Do we agree on that?
Furthermore, those builds usually follow a quite specific strategy in order to score. If this strategy can be countered or does not work e.g. due to bad dices - than this kind of list usually is more prone to desaster than a conservative list or at the least it is more unlikely to get more than 10 points (sooner less than that). Do we still agree?

If this is so, than agressive builds are riskier but this risk is also associated with chance - of winning high.

Now, for a risk-neutral person, utility from risk vs chance of the agressive built should equal each other. BUT human beings tend to be risk averse and that is why we usually value the conservative builts higher...

Let's test some rosters to then have a broad idea of what we'll like to see played, and then we see which opponent an army is most likely to face. And we can thus build strong armies.

I have to strongly oppose that idea! The consequence of your proposal will be, that we will test "gazillions" of different list concepts, which all can work, depending on what kind of opponent they will face in reality. But that will lead to "nothing" as the people will not have properly tested the list, they are playing in the end, but will have "hundreds" of games with concepts not being played in the end.

I would rather have a rough idea now, what direction the team roster should take and then have suggestions which armies could take which role. That obviously can be challenged by the players when they bring a different concept that looks well and than be changed. But by this we have a solid starting point where each player will have a rough idea what kind of concept he could test.

Let me give you a life example - already now, without having had a training day, we already have several armies where players ask - which direction shall I go as my built depends on the role in the team.

Nonetheless, all these lists usually are associated with more particularly bad matchups than the non-aggressive/conservative lists. Do we agree on that?

More or less

I had to be quick so I might have made a fool of myself when stating my opinion ^^

I think it's important to have lists that can score high AND that can draw quite easily if we fail our pairing and that an army has to face an opponent it doesn't like. A DE dragon list can be good to click several standard ETC armies (just an example) but fears Empire and Dwarves. Let's say that the purpose of the DE is not to go against those armies, why the dragon should be a risky choice then?
However when building the list we should keep in mind that solution must exist if one has face his nemesis (namely he should be able to draw or get a small defeat when facing the worst army he could hope)

It's not a matter of being conservative imho.

We simply need:

2 armies who have MAX 1 list they would not like to face (ex dwarves and Vampire), knowing that they need to be still able to score because they can choose their opponent.
2-3 armies "swiss knife", they can basically go against everything, except some bad matchups they would like to avoid.
They can be thrown in 3rd position (or replace one of the two first if we need the other later in the pairing) and also go with an army if we don't have two armies to go against an opponent the other team is sending us.
3-4 armies with more specific goals, keeping in mind that they should be able to corner against a nemesis if the pairing goes wrong.


A dragon or a bell would not be too risky, it would simply move the list from a category to another

The consequence of your proposal will be, that we will test "gazillions" of different list concepts, which all can work, depending on what kind of opponent they will face in reality. But that will lead to "nothing" as the people will not have properly tested the list, they are playing in the end, but will have "hundreds" of games with concepts not being played in the end.

The thing is, we're still at the beginning.
The phase we have begun could be described as "find the best team composition"
We should then first find the concept we want to play and what best 8 armies fit in that template.
More talk has to be done ofc to start to draw a nice team composition. We'll have a first discussion during the training day; but only once we have this scheme in our head we can start "real lists". We cannot know now whether it's better to play the dwarf as an "I hold everyone" army or whether they would be best used to counter some armies the opponent is likely to send us. For instance I have noticed that shooty army are often being thrown first, so the armies left over at the end are usually the ones fearing the heavy shooting... hence keeping the dwarves for the end might be smart.

I don't know if I can tell my thought clear enough, I feel quite confused (I use a quite fucked up belgian keyboard )

I can only make it short :

I agree with Xavier at some point, and also with Buchi's both remarks on risks. However (I think) you also forgot to add than when does more specific list go right, it's easier to score a 20-0, though it's true that there is more risk on the line. I want to stress Xavier quoting me, having a specific or agressive type of build does not result in a 0-20 if the pairing is bad, a lot of those armies are good to corner in (and sometimes, you can counter the counter because he takes too many risks at trying to score high against you :p ).

With regards to the test, we can't decide anything yet, it's too soon. New restrictions aren't out, new books are coming, I would rather have us take a few months to do those random testing and then at some point focus on what we saw might work.

Finally, we all agree that we don't have the pool of players to fill 8 agressive roosters on the team, so Xavier's composition seems intelligent

Cheers,

Biboun

To not discuss that endlessly, as we obviously have some differing opinions on some of the points, I would like to make a suggestion:

Can we at least make a list where we compile all armies and players that could/would play them, probably ranking them 1-3
1) Know the army well and/or would like to play it
2) Know the army and/or could play it
3) Know the army a bit and/or if need be will play it

Than we should also track, who has/is training with which armies and which concepts.

That at least could give us some idea on what we can draw on and what we might probably do/need in order to get a competative team together.

Would this be ok, or would you like anything else to the list?

About "risky" play, I should say, let's see what last year winner (poland) is playing:

Lizardmens-> no saurus
Skaven -> screaming bell.
Dark elves-> Dragon.
OK-> very aggressive

So it seems that pairing these "risky" lists is doable. The more the pairing quality/player quality is high, the more we can play "risky" lists.

Cheers,
Dim

Yea but you change the reality a little bit also cause :
all the OK were aggressive, it's the army not a polish OK specificity!
The liz just replace the saurus with skink + krox (if I remember well) it's just a different way not so risky in comparison with saurus.

I agree they were aggressive but not very aggressive in comparison with other team=> if you want to see really aggressive one look at the french team!

So it seems that pairing these "risky" lists is doable. The more the pairing quality/player quality is high, the more we can play "risky" lists.

I agree - but then, would you say, that the quality of players here in Switzerland is as high or higher as in Poland?
Because if not, then we should stick to your advise - which would mean to play less "risky", right?

Yes, but we do have some competent players. Not all, but some. So we still can fill one or two "risky armies".
I mean quality, not excellence!

Of course Switzerland is better than Poland ! Only a sick mind would think the other way around.

Buchi, please top mining the moral of the troops by some defeatist propaganda !

Go Dragon !

Perfect let's play aggro.





But let me play a defensive list please

Dragon, dragon... dragon

I'll go with the wood elf dragon list

Well, at least now we have sorted out, how our list concepts are going to look like...

WoC - Dragon
DE - Dragon
HE - Dragon
WE - Dragon
Bretonia - Hyppogriff
Vampires - Zombiedragon
O&G - Double Wyvern
Beastman - Double Jabberwoockie

Hooray Switzerland!

Btw - I never said anything undermining - I just asked the question, if we think that Poland is better, while Xavier gave the "obvious" answer...

Hum, I said one ore two

A conservative list for me too please!!


Anyway, I'm not sure if comparing Poland and Switzerland Skills is so usefull, but at least if we take a look at the rosters you mentioned before:

Liz. 26 cama, 9 terra, everything wit movement 6+ (except slaan), nobody to strike in CC (2x scars only), lore of heaven (one of the most direct damage dealing)...this is a perfect conservative list (an the one I prefere^^) lot of skirm and moevement, avoid CC, lot of magic shooting and ranged shooting. No risks, no free points, a good conservative 10-14 list.

Take a look at the polish team composition:

Agressive lists: Ogre kingdom, DE, Bretonnia

Conservatives: Liz, Skaven, WoC, Chaos Dwarves.

And VC wich is somthing between.

A pretty balanced composition...

Pulps

Okay gentlemen, I think it's time to summarize what we've thought about so far =)

We brought some nice ideas to the game and it's great that thing are moving so well, I would like to thank you for that. Feeling a motivate bunch of players is a nice motivation to go even further

Basically, I am going to summarize the armies we could have:

1) Skaven
a) with the bell -> fears the shooting but efficient against the rest
b) without bell -> more a draw army, but good match-ups against shooty armies

2) Dwarves
a) offensive dwarves -> we saw the potential of the list !
b) defensive dwarves -> might be more secure, but doesn't allow to score high

3) Bretonnians
a) Flying circus being the best roster, only minor adjustments will be necessary

4) Empire
a) here too, full 1+ without the thank seems the best army. Minor adjustments needed as well

5) Dark Elves
a) 3 assassins list (with or without double sorceress
b) offensive list with 3x pegasus
c) ofensive list with dragon

6) Deamons
a) we have a list that works well with Alan, but new Deamons will change that

7) Vampires
a) we have the list, very strong and only need minor adjustments

Lizardmen
a) here too, basically changes will be on the Slaan lore, otherwise the rest is quite standard

9) Chaos Dwarves
a) a shooty/combat list with K'daï appears to be the only possibility

10) Orcs and Goblins
a) close combat list as well, with or without the pack of trolls

11) Tomb Kings
a) defensive list with lore of death
b) congress of light with 2x necropolis knights

12) High Elves
a) congress of light with dragon/withe lions

13) Ogers
a) only mournfangs
b) mournfangs + maneaters


Notwithstanding the fact that new Deamons and Chaos Warriors will be rbing new things into the game, I think these are the armies we're probably going to pick up for our pairing.
We have 8 spots.

I would like to know your ideas about your wished team composition for next year.
I think it's way easier if we can know what are concretely the ideas of each of us, so we can compare and talk about hem

Here's mine:

1) Empire -> very polyvalent army, able to take everything and to corner quite well, 3 canons make them good in antishooting army
2) Vampire -> can score well against almost everything, good in antishooting as well
3) Ogers -> army to push, very good offensive potential
4) Bretonians -> some bad match-ups but really hard to crush. Can push when necessary.
5) Dwarves -> multipurpose army that can punish really hard the opponent, can play either offensive or defensive
6) Dark Elves -> not so efficient against shooting, but full flying make it very hard for many opponents to manage
7) Deamons -> with those restrictions, bloodletters are a pain in the ass for many armies (but would be replaced by High Elves or Orcs in case they get pinned)
Skaven -> Bell list, conservative but with huge agressive potential if the opponent comes to take points

It leaves out High Elves, Lizardmen, Chaos Dwarves and Orcs and Goblins... it's hard to satisfy everyone, and I think we should test our pairings to see what improvments we can do. I'm trying to get a place to go to the french qualifers in april. I think it would be a great plus (as well with a funny weekend)
Otherwise, testing days against Germans or French ETC teams would be great ! We did that in 2011 and it really helped us


What about you?

How does the Lizardmen list look like? Imo there are various options to play them atm...

My roster would be:

1) Empire - but with stank
2) Vampire - sure that Alan will have a great list in petto
3) Ogers -> army to push, very good offensive potential
4) Bretonians -> some bad match-ups but really hard to crush. Can push when necessary.
5) Dwarves -> multipurpose army that can punish really hard the opponent, can play either offensive or defensive
6) O&G -> they can be played several ways as well and have a few good matchups that other armies lack with only Vampires being really bad for them.
7 ) Skaven -> Bell list, conservative but with huge agressive potential no matter if the opponent comes or you have to move to him
8a) High Elves -> italian list or lion breakers can bunker or be played offensive both.
8b) Lizardmen -> German list with double shadow Slaan and infantry breakers. not many ways to lose points but can be used to push

Imo DE and daemons are at the moment to harshly comped. Daemons get a new book though, so one has to wait and see.

Really interesting !
I have thought about such a composition myself so I like the ideas brought into the game

There are some issues though, but more about the players pool of Switzerland.

1) we don't have an Ogers players so we have to put a polyvalent good player on them (who then won't be elsewhere)
2) if you don't come, it'll be hard to find a suitable HE player (Aurel may do it, but he still has to play Ogers, O&G and Chaos Dwarves )
3) We have only one experienced player with Lizardmen or O&G : Pulp; so filling up those two armies will be hard
4) We have some good DE players (me, Victor and Andy) that makes it interesting to play them

Of course, it is all based on players issues. I get that exprienced from the previous ETC, everytime the player was forced to play something he didn't want to play (or wasn't simply experienced enough to play) the result wasn't good (ex: Obi with TK in 2010, Aurel with HE in 2009, me with Skavens in 2010, Antoine with Empire in 2011) so in my humble opinion I think it's very important to put the right player behind the right army

The possibilities of team composition are infinite, but our players are quite a few, sadly.


I don't like so much the German Lizardmen. For me it lacks the potential to really go and get points. Saurus are for me quite slow and weak without magic support (which you won't get if he charges you in his turn) And 4 dices makes it uncertain with mindrazors.
I like the laser, shoot and hide list more, where it's really hard for the opponent to get points. But I'm not even sure whether we should play lizardmen altogether (only Pulp can play them at ETC level and he might be either not there or needed on some other armies like High Elves or Orcs)

At least we agreed on the basis ! (6 armies out of 8 )
If somebody else has a argument against those, please raise your voice !

I think what we should do is make the best lists for those 5-6 and then make a pairing matrix and see against what we lack of counters, and then adapt the last 2-3 armies (or replace one of the 6 by another one) to fill in the last choices accordingly.

So now basically the task is to:

1) play some more games with those armies
2) be able to draw for each of them an accurate +/- matrix
3) see what we lack
4) complete or team composition accordingly
5) train and test in a team tournament
6) make final mdofications


I'd say we have until end of february/march to do the points 1) and 2)
Then we might know more about new Chaos and new Deamons
And we'll be able to decide our first choice of team composition. After that, it would be really great if we could go to some ETC Team Tournament to test our pairing comp and the pairing tool (best would be the french qualifiers, since the german one is only with 5 players per team)

And then we can make the last adjustments and intensive training

Any opinions?

Sounds in general good to me But keep in mind that your plan is leaving out one very important fact - we do not know nothing as of yet about the new ETC comp.

About the player pool - one could ask Stefan Oberholzer in regard to Ogers - he has some experience with them as far as I know and the potential should be there. Probably an additional option to consider if he is interested.

About the german Lizardmen - you will nearly never flee, when you are engaged cause even without supporting magic it is unlikely that something that has enough cc power to win combat high has more ranks than you do and even then you roll 3 dice for Ld. You also have the Salas to bring down large enemy blocks to reasonable size before they can hit you. And you have 2x the 0 spell where at least one should go through to support you the round before a dangerous enemy unit may be able to charge you. So chances are extremely high that you hold any attack that someone might try and once it is your turn the double shadow will make the cc go your way very likely. so I see neither offensively nor defensively much problems with the lists as long as the Slaans do not explode themselves.
But most interestingly, that list can push far better than the evasive Skink list and at the same time it is even at least as effective against warmachine armies due to double pit. that is at least my point of view.

Buchi wrote:
About the player pool - one could ask Stefan Oberholzer in regard to Ogers - he has some experience with them as far as I know and the potential should be there. Probably an additional option to consider if he is interested.

Nope he thinks of them as boring to play and he won't be coming to the ETC, we talked about it


Cheers,

Biboun

But keep in mind that your plan is leaving out one very important fact - we do not know nothing as of yet about the new ETC comp.

Very true, I'm just guessing that we will not see any major changes in the comp (apart from those which have not been released yet, of course)
Let's work on the basis we have now, since we do not have anything more than that. It will be easy to modify the lists in order to suite to the new rulespack

And about german lizardmen, I have never been impressed by the results of the lists, neither at the warm-up nor at the ETC. It sounds like a list that works typically good on paper but less on the battlefield.
I might be mistaken of course, since I have never played nor played against such a list.

We'll see with the lizardmen player when the time will have come. If we play Lizardmen I would also like to have this list considered and tested

I think it's still a bit too eraly to get to some conclusions. As you have said, ETC compositions and rules aren't still there, a couple of armies will probably change the metagame, and so on.

As you have done, to summarize the situation in order to keep in mind the current situation, is perfect for now, and to keep it actualized. And, as you noticed, players are at least equally important as the ermy composition, so it's better to speak in terms of "Skaven(Buchi)" instead of only "Skaven", for example. As everybody knows, in Switzerland we don't have a wide pool of skilled players to choose from.

And of course I'll be there for the ETC


Pulps