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Strategy and Tactics - Races by tiers

Daggers - Nov 21, 2012 - 11:14 AM
Post subject: Races by tiers

Ok, so I have had this discussion with people, but wanted to get a majority opinion on what is generally accepted.

What are the race breakdown by tier. I searched the web, but the results that came back were varied and I was suprised at some of the races per tier. I realize this is all up to interpretation, but just wanted to see what the breakdown was. Also, I realize the coach has alot to do with it (hell, I love playing halflings and can win more than I lose with them), but I am looking at the average. This is what I could piece together.

Tier 1:
Wood Elf, Dwarf, Orc, Undead, Skaven

Tier 2:
All the rest

Tier 3:
Ogres, Halflings, Goblins, Vampires, Chaos Pact, Underworld

dode74 - Nov 21, 2012 - 12:03 PM
Post subject: RE: Races by tiers

3 Tier 1.5 (50% to 40%) - Chaos Pact, Slann, Underworld
1 Tier 2 (45% to 35%) - Vampire
3 Tier 3 (35% to 30%) - Ogre, Goblin, Halfling
Everyone else is Tier 1.

From here.

Daggers - Nov 21, 2012 - 12:40 PM
Post subject: RE: Races by tiers

Wow, thanks, that one made some decent sense (all the pointless other drabble was humorous to read, whoever Jimmy Fantastic is). I like that most teams are tier 1, so only 7 teams are not considered tier 1. That works for me.
Thanks dode74, much appreciated.

babass - Nov 22, 2012 - 05:58 AM
Post subject: RE: Races by tiers

i think, i always see this tiers in tourneys:

Quote:

Tier 1 Teams Amazons, Chaos Dwarves, Dark Elves, Dwarves, Lizardmen, Necromantic, Norse, Orcs, Skaven, Undead, Wood Elves
Tier 2 Teams Chaos, Chaos Pact, Elves, High Elves, Humans, Khemri, Nurgle, Slann
Tier 3 Teams Goblins, Halflings, Ogres, Vampires, Underworld

Daggers - Nov 22, 2012 - 10:57 AM
Post subject: RE: Races by tiers

Thanks, interesting. The second one has more tier 2 teams than the first. Think I opened up a can of worms. thanks for the info.

Elyoukey - Nov 23, 2012 - 03:15 AM
Post subject: RE: Races by tiers

also you should consider the format in which you calculate this %. At low TV, some rosters are more owerfull (amazon dwarf for exemple) while at high TR a chaos team or chaos pact can be almost unbeatable .

dode74 - Nov 23, 2012 - 03:38 AM
Post subject: RE: Races by tiers

I think you'd be surprised by the data - Chaos and Pact aren't "almost unbeatable" at high TV by any stretch - in fact, at high TV the 4 elven teams and Skaven are better: http://www.cmanu.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/bb/stats/stats.html Those stats were put together by Koadah at FUMBBL using FUMBBL Blackbox data. I know TV-matching isn't the way things are "normally" done, but tournaments are low-TV matches, are they not? Because if it's low TV you're interested in then sub-1400 it's Zons, Lizards and Undead you could consider as slightly better than other teams based on that data.

Daggers - Nov 23, 2012 - 07:34 AM
Post subject: RE: Races by tiers

Wow, that link is cool. It really is amazing to see how some races improve/weaken as the TV goes up. Although I find it humorous that the bottom four races basically never change, and my beloved halflings are not the worst race out there. Have to keep that link for future reference. Thanks dode74

Jonny_P - Nov 23, 2012 - 07:49 AM
Post subject: Re: RE: Races by tiers

babass wrote:

i think, i always see this tiers in tourneys:

Quote:

When speaking of tournaments, it ALL depends on the rules pack IMO.

Chaos Pact, High Elves, and Humans can all do pretty well with a lot of skills and more than one skill per player added.

But let's say the tournament only allows a certain skill to be taken up to 2 times....so a Lizard team with only two Block Saurus, or Dwarf team with only two Guard Blockers are just not as good as a rules pack with more liberal skill choices.

Daggers - Nov 23, 2012 - 10:07 AM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

That I know, but I was just trying to get a general overview. We are trying something different this year for CCKO, with skills packs instead of skill purchasing, 1 skill per player, and the 0-2 skill limit per team (so no spamming Guard). I know it slows down teams like Orc, Dwarf and Amazon, but we are testing out this to see we can coax afew lower tier teams out to tournaments.

Anyways, just trying to do something a little different team build wise, in hopes of getting a better variety of teams. We shall see.

blammaham - Nov 23, 2012 - 01:41 PM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

Almost universally now, we use a skill limit in our rule packs for our tournaments and while it does affect some teams more than others, I have still seen tier one teams like Dwarfs and Lizards still do very well at some events. I'm not sure that most skill packs actually change the tiers, the good races are still good and the challenging ones still are just that. At least that's what I have found in the small sample size of the tournaments out here. S.

Daggers - Nov 23, 2012 - 02:38 PM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

I think this is more to bridge the gap, but yes, strong teams will ALWAYS do well. I mean Dwarves still have AV9 and Block/Tackle everywhere. Its not like they are going to get creamed by trying to give other teams afew more incentives. I think this concept just makes other teams more playable. In resurrection tournaments, its takes away the bonuses of agile teams for example, because they can't accumulate those skills faster. I play various elf teams in league, because I know in an 8 games I will get twice as many skills as most of the other coaches. But in tournaments, that is nullified. This is why I am trying this system out in my own tournament. I want to get afew tournaments of this in and really see if it helps or not. But except for afew coaches who are really good with many teams, most coaches will still have a hard time with a tier 2 or 3 team against a tier 1 team in a tournament where they both have the same limitations of skills and such. This is just more of an experiment to see if there is a way to bridge that great divide between the normally strong races, and the slightly strong races. I also want to make sure not to miss some weird combination where one strong team gets a weird advantage and becomes even more powerful.

kikurasis - Nov 23, 2012 - 03:04 PM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

If you are trying to bridge the tier gap, I'd suggest running something with the NTBB house rule set. Plasmid has a group of house rules that seem to do just what they are supposed to -- bring the lower tier teams up a bit and the higher tier ones down a tad. The teams are still tiered the same, but are a bit closer so that people actually have a chance with the lower tiers and the higher ones aren't the same ones that win all the time.

Jonny_P - Nov 23, 2012 - 07:15 PM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

If you want an eye-opening stats in regards to races and skill options.

Chaos Cup had 80 coaches. Not a single Lizardman team. We had a limit of only two of a certain skill.
ZlurpeeBowl had 60 coaches. 7 Lizardman teams. No limit to how many of a certain skill can be taken.

generaljason - Nov 29, 2012 - 06:03 AM
Post subject: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

Dwarfrunner wrote:

+1. No spamming Guard imho. No offence meant to those who like it. Iron Mike's tournament played that way and I had a blast in Spokane.

Dwarfrunner wrote:

I know it slows down teams like Orc, Dwarf and Amazon, but we are testing out this to see we can coax a few lower tier teams out to tournaments.

On top of getting rid of spamming Guard, we found that it encouraged variety in our experience. Travis (Frostitute) from Oregon went 5th at Spike! this year with an Underworld team. Tony (Redman) came second to Kaare with a Chaos team.

Dwarfrunner wrote:

Anyways, just trying to do something a little different team build wise, in hopes of getting a better variety of teams. We shall see.

We had 19/24 races represented at Spike this year. Not a lot of tier 2 in multiples; Humans and Orcs were represented the most. Any rule set people are still going to play to win, but I find that the 0-2 limit on same skill picks at minimum adds variety to the builds that you see on teams, and yeah no spam Guard. The opposite I find overly favours bash teams. Just my opinion. I like playing in tournaments either way.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback on those rules come January. Very Happy

Cheers,
Gj.

Off topic: check out this thread in our forum and see if it's accurate Mark. You'd know more about the tournaments back East then I would - all the info I didn't know I got from the NAF site:
http://www.thunderbowl.ca/forum/index.php/topic,1948.0.html

Grumbledook - Nov 29, 2012 - 06:06 AM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

unfortunately the 0-2 restriction does nothing to hamper woodies and they can happily carry on regardless but it hurts the teams that can usually compete with them

scottprime - Nov 29, 2012 - 10:53 AM
Post subject: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

Jonny_P wrote:

My opinion and not to rock the boat.

I think that what is stated above is just happenstance. Sure someone might have said they couldn't do well with the current Tournament build with Lizardmen BUT don't forgot it was promoted that the Chaos Teams (Pact, Underworld, Chaos and Nurgle) would get a special giveaway for playing these teams, plus the last round mutation bonus.

I know many people brought some of those teams to go along with the theme and the bonus giveaway. So maybe they passed on a Lizardmen Team for a Chaos, I know Kilowoggy before the event even started said he was bringing lizardmen the following year if he can get them painted in time.

Look at Chaos Cup 2010, there was no Chaos Pact, Ogre, Pro Elf, or Halfling teams with only 34 people. 4 teams only not represented.

Look at Chaos Cup 2011, there was no Underworld, Slann, Vampire, High Elf, Pro Elf, Khemri, Lizardman and Ogre teams with 56 people. More people less teams played. 8 teams only not represented.

Now look at Chaos Cup 2012, just no Lizardman with 80. Despite the higher numbers I would say you did a great job getting people to try the Chaos team and people ventured out on there own to play something different. 1 team not represented.

I would not look at CC 2012 with no Lizardmen teams as a sore spot, I would look at how much better it got and what you did as the TO to try and get people to play a Chaos themed team. Its the highest stakes tournament in the US and to have so many team represented is amazing.

A top tier 1 team will always be a good tier 1 team, IMO and I don't play as many tournaments as others. But in BB the teams do not start the same, thus through improvements they most likely will not and never be the same. There is a reason that there is a pocket of teams that win the whole thing most of the time, they are just better teams to begin with.

Its not the tournament rules its the game we play.

CC 2012 with 80 players and all but one team represented is a HUGE success Jonny P be proud you.

Xtreme - Nov 29, 2012 - 12:27 PM
Post subject: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

Grumbledook wrote:

unfortunately the 0-2 restriction does nothing to hamper woodies and they can happily carry on regardless but it hurts the teams that can usually compete with them

Agreed, I would also add Undead to that statement.
So the top two races in tournament play according to NAF stats every year aren't affected at all by a 0-2 cap. But the teams that could compete with them are. So with fewer races around to compete with they get pushed further to the top.

Daggers - Nov 29, 2012 - 01:00 PM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

The other aspect of the skills pack that people are slightly overlooking is you get only 5 reg as well. This hopefully will make skill selection a little more difficult. So yes, Undead might be okay, but no mummies with Block still makes the somewhat vulnerable. And tier 2 and 3 teams gets additional bonuses as well. But anyways, its interesting to read, but I will leave judgement until after the tournament to see if it makes a difference and see what races show up.

But yes, when you have 80 coaches there is pretty good chance you will have most races played just by sheer numbers. So comparing it to previous years is somewhat difficuly because it has its own ruleset and bonuses. Another year or two with similar numbers will be a good indicator more than just one. But the fact that many races were represented is always a good thing. I don't mind playing against Orc, Dwarf & Norse, but it is nice to play some other teams as well (especially since I am usually playing halflings). But I will win either way, so thats beside the point. ;P

Daggers - Nov 29, 2012 - 01:04 PM
Post subject: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

generaljason wrote:

Off topic: check out this thread in our forum and see if it's accurate Mark. You'd know more about the tournaments back East then I would - all the info I didn't know I got from the NAF site:
http://www.thunderbowl.ca/forum/index.php/topic,1948.0.html

Most of it looked good, there were one or two that seemed off. But I will double check to make sure games weren't missed or something, of my memory is off.

dode74 - Nov 29, 2012 - 01:05 PM
Post subject: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

Xtreme wrote:

Grumbledook wrote:

unfortunately the 0-2 restriction does nothing to hamper woodies and they can happily carry on regardless but it hurts the teams that can usually compete with them

Is there an easy way to get at those stats? All I see are rankings, and that's not a vast amount of use to me tbh.

Warpstone - Nov 30, 2012 - 11:23 PM
Post subject: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

dode74 wrote:

Xtreme wrote:

Grumbledook wrote:

unfortunately the 0-2 restriction does nothing to hamper woodies and they can happily carry on regardless but it hurts the teams that can usually compete with them

Is there an easy way to get at those stats? All I see are rankings, and that's not a vast amount of use to me tbh.

Do you mean race results broken down by rule sets?

dode74 - Dec 01, 2012 - 01:55 AM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

Yes. Darkson has pointed me in the right direction, thanks.

Warpstone - Dec 03, 2012 - 11:43 AM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

Where did he point you to? I don't think we have any metadata about rules variations per tourny besides a TV limit.

It's likely a significant sample is harder (or nigh impossible) to find when you consider that many tournies don't just use custom skill rules, but also custom stars and rosters too. Both NAF's DB and even Doubleskull's results contain many outliers that would need to be controlled for.

dode74 - Dec 03, 2012 - 01:24 PM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

He pointed me at the "statistics" link on the ranking page.

You are right, of course, about the sample being full of house rules, but I think we can agree that the sample is representative of all the NAF approved house rules. Of course, with no idea what those rules were we can't really apply a "fix".

Jonny_P - Dec 03, 2012 - 08:18 PM
Post subject: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

fatfinley wrote:

CC 2012 with 80 players and all but one team represented is a HUGE success Jonny P be proud you.

Thanks for the kind words, but I just used lizardmen as an example because they are always around.

And I wish your above statement was true, but CC2012 didn't see Ogre, Pro Elf, and Vampire either!

I truly believe the lack of Lizardmen at CC2012 was not coincidence. People play the team they want, but they also look at the rule set before deciding. You can't tell me that a limiting set of choices won't possibly change someone's mind.

I'm leaning toward 0-4 of each skill and up to 0-2 players can have a skill for Chaos Cup 2013. At this point in my experience, it appears to be the best compromise. Just my opinion.

Kilowoggy - Dec 03, 2012 - 09:54 PM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

I haven't played many tournies, but it seems to me that Lizards, Ogre, Vamps, and Pro Elf tend to be teams that people take for fun. None of them are that competitive unless the rules make them so.
There's a number of people that will play "Fun" teams. Those people will normally flow evenly between the lesser races. However, when a tournament rewards people for playing a specifc type of fun team, then they flow more towards those teams than the others.
So, if there's 10 "fun" coaches, then at a regular tournament, they'll take whatever they have fun with or haven't played in a while or whatever.
But, when you have a Nurgle based one or a Goblin based one or a Halfling based one or something, those same 10 will focus on that one team type and now an even small subset of an already small subset of coaches will be going to the other "fun" teams.
That's how I see it.
I took humans, but i thought about taking Nurgle because of the theme. I ended up not doing it because my human team is Chicago Bears based. That's my own weirdness telling me what to pick.
I'm taking Lizardmen this year because I've wanted a team for a while and have never played them and want to paint them. Doesn't matter what the ruleset is, I'll be taking Lizards just for the fun of it.

Hopefully that all makes sense. It's late and I've had waaaaaaaay too much chocolate milk.
JK... I wish I had chocolate milk...
mmmmm.... chocolate milk...

babass - Dec 04, 2012 - 04:49 AM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

Lizards is one of the most efficiant roster in the most common tournament-ruleset (TV110+5skills)
And you could see in the last Euro results, that it was the most efficiant roster !

Concerning the Pro Elves, it is most of the time the most efficiant roster of the Tier2.

it's really strange to see Lizards and elves on the same level as ogres and vampires Shocked

SolarFlare - Dec 07, 2012 - 09:47 AM
Post subject: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

Very interesting discussion. Good facts fatfinley.

So, am I to understand there were no lizards at CC in 2011 or 2012? I believe they used essentially identical rules sets. So, that would mean zero lizards out of (56 +80) 136!!! That is fairly remarkable, in my opinion. Given the apparent popularity of lizards in other recent tourneys in the same area, it does not seem coincidental to me.

Warpstone - Dec 07, 2012 - 10:41 AM
Post subject: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Races by tiers

dode74 wrote:

Well, you could import each Tourny into your dataset and manually add rule set meta-data to sort it all out for your regressions. Very Happy

You might just be better off limiting results to big tournaments with reliably consistent rule sets, i.e. NAFC and similar "by the book" events with lots of out-of-town attendance. I stress the latter part too because frankly isolated local tourny data is so easily skewed by one or two good coaches. In something like the NAFC, outliers such as great coaches and even shtick coaches (i.e. the all hobgoblin team!) are better absorbed.

It's tough Dode. I too would like to crunch the numbers and get better resolution on team strength (i.e. how do tier 1 teams played by coaches with winning records fair?). But most tourny data are simply apples to oranges due to the lack of any standard ruleset. Most anecdotal conclusions about team power are probably accurate... Sad

But we will never know the margin of accuracy or deviation unless there's one rule platform--and I doubt NAF has the desire to put the genie back in the bottle on that one. Wink